#so i've got a bit of a backlog to work through

[fict1onallyobsessed]

Just watched act 1 and I'm actually feral for Sevika. Like omg what?! How is she so hot?! Anyway I've had this idea of sharing a smoke with her. Specially shotgunning. Um. Yeah. Anyway maybe that would turn into something a bit more - NSFW should we say. Definitely biting. You know what I'm talking about lol anyway this isn't a lot to work with I know.. I just saw your post asking for Sevika requests so I figured I'd pop in

Sevika x F!Reader 18+

Her lungs burnt as she inhaled her cigar, watching you fix her arm for the hundredth time this week. Your eyebrows were furrowed in concentration, screwdriver carefully pulling out the broken metal parts in her arm, clinking in the silence.

She could feel your frustration before she even entered your little mechanic shop. People were being more demanding for fixes as Zaun practically relied on prosthetic limbs, and you were rated the best one for the job. Sometimes you felt like a pawn; people didn't even pay that well. You might have to think of increasing the prices...

"You think too much."

You sighed, looking up at your girlfriend who huffed out smoke through her nose. She knew you were busy, and a part of her felt bad last time you stayed late to fix her arm, so she tried really hard to keep it in a manageable state for longer than usual.

Heavy on tried.

"You should learn how to fight." You snapped back playfully, looking back down at the arm for the final few fixes. The arm hissed and popped once, finally being fully functional again. "Even Ran doesn't come in this often. Might have to start charging you."

Sevika scoffed as she watched you stand up to toss your tools onto your very littered desk, your hands coming up to wipe your tired face.

"You're processor is fried. I'll make you a new one soon, but this one should hold up if you can hold off fighting for a few days."

She was listening but all she could focus on is how exhausted your eyes looked. She asked if you were done for the day, if you wanted to go home but you were already backlogged for weeks with new projects and fixes. You politely declined, walking over to her again and taking the cigar from her lips only to put it in your own mouth.

Sevika didn't flinch. It was something you did often, especially on nights where you needed something to keep you awake for a little longer.

Sevika sat on the small couch, looking up at you as you inhaled, smoke escaping your nose before you even got to exhale. She thought for a moment, then grabbed the back on your thighs and pulled you to straddle her.

"'Vika, I need to get-"

"To work. I know." She casually said, taking the cigar from your hands and inhaling deeply herself. Her eyes remained on yours while her hand reached up to grip the back of your neck, pulling you up to her lips.

For a second you thought she was going to kiss you, like she did always in thanks when you fix her up. But instead, she stopped you right before her face, hand now moving to open your mouth with her thumb. Then she exhaled.

You felt dizzy. You had smoked plenty of times, and since meeting Sevika you smoked plenty more. But this was so intoxicating it felt better than any cigarette you've ever tried.

You relaxed on her lap, sinking onto her as you tried to breathe normally. Her mechanic hand held your waist, the other firmly on your jaw to keep it open against her mouth. Just as the smoke began to fade, she pulled you fully against her, lips clashing together in a kiss.

You pulled away only when you felt you couldn't breathe, both of your chests rising and falling as you stared down at Sevika, her pupils blown wide, devouring you.

Work could wait.

You grabbed the cigar back, inhaling so deeply you felt your throat close up momentarily. Still, you leaned down and grabbed her jaw while her hands fell to your hips, gripping tightly to pull you even closer.

You exhaled the smoke as slowly as you could, relishing in the moment for a while before the smoke faded again. You wasted no time in kissing her again, a slight moan escaping your lips and into her mouth. You could taste the smoke in her mouth but it only seemed to rile you up more.

Your hips bucked, unintentionally, and you felt Sevika smirk into the kiss.

"That's all it takes to get you going?" Sevika teased. You replied with a breathy and rushed 'shut up' before going back to her lips, rocking your hips more now she was aware of your intentions. Her grip on you tightened, moving you so that you were straddling one of her thighs.

You really tried to keep your groans in, but the way your clit was grinding against the inside of your jeans. Fuck.

"Fuck. Do it again." You lifted the cigar to her lips, making her inhale it and letting her grab your jaw once more, shot gunning the smoke right into your mouth. You tried to breathe steadily, but her hand made you grind on her thigh more.

"So fucking pretty. Barely touched you and you're gonna cum already?"

You were so fucking close, a whine leaving your lips as you hid your face in the crook of her neck. She could feel the small puffs of air you breathed, trying to maintain some kind of control. Your teeth nipped at her skin, her own composure slowly failing.

You huffed when she accidentally made a sound when you bit into her neck. Your hips stuttered and bucked uncontrollably as you came, lips remaining at her skin until you were stable enough to pull away.

"That's all it takes to get you going?" You teased, mocking her words as angry red marks appeared on her neck. She was flushed and panting, your hips still held by her hands. She smirked, kissing you again before standing up and making you stand on your wobbly legs.

"Home. Now."

[darqx]

Snakes on a post

Another particularly long answer dump since i, once again, have a backlog of things to potentially answer |D

❗️For commonly asked qs please see my BTD FAQ

Got jumpscared with my own old art for a hot minute there LAUGHS.

(For those wondering, the naga doodle from here was attached to the ask)

That is every other Royal that exists in the Nether and also at least some of the demons that challenged him for his Royal title lol.

Believe me, no one was or is more surprised then me XD;

So, the thing about where Rire's ichor manifests is that it kinda exists and doesn't exist at the same time. Meaning that his upper back is where the manifestation point is anchored, BUT it can still manifest with a bit of space in between it and his back hence why it will manifest over his clothes and not through them.

So if you touch where the manifestation point is sans the ichor, than you are just straight up touching his back. With the ichor, he still gets sensory input from the tentacles to his back but it's a lot more soft and muted esp the further away it gets from him. As you've seen implied though, he would feel a very sharp pain if a great deal of damage was done to the ichor where it clusters at the manifestation point, since he'd DEF be feeling that straight in his back lol.

He is definitely a top and the only way he would bottom for anybody is if they somehow forced him to.

Ah i knew i'd answered this a long time ago [finally found it]! Holy crosses (those that have been blessed) can also burn him but they would need to be in contact with him the entire time. Being a Royal he also has more of a tolerance to these than normal demons.

Well, unless said person actually has the undeniable ability to make good on their words, Rire would just stand there rather genially with that little smile he sometimes has and let them finish.

And then he might use them as reverse suggestions for dealing with said person (why would you give him any ideas!!?)

both

In BTD canon it is quite possible that they actually haven't in person. But we are using creative license here haha.

Rire heals a lot faster than a human. Cain is not my character so I don't know how his stacks up.

I've grouped these asks cos they kind of have similar answers - 360° (jk sorry sorry to the second q that is just a very common spelling mistake and I couldn't resist XD; )

Now, even though we mashed all the characs together in BTD, they all actually come from different storylines and so their canons outside the "BTD canon" may differ. This tends to bleed in. With this in mind:

The rules of Rire's canon (eg the concept of Battle Royales and how to become a Royal) don't apply to Cain. Anyway, they don't live in the same place either.

Cain is canonically the oldest and most OP character in BTD lol so yes he is stronger than Rire - you might've noticed, but Rire is never in the same drawing as Cain voluntarily. I play with this along with the "natural weakness" aspect - which I've also referred to as scissors-paper-rock rules XD Basically; demons beat humans, angels beat demons (purely because demons have weakness against holiness).

It would (be insane) but I hope you are not looking at me to fulfil this :d

Not really

His coronation day is a public holiday in his sector so yes XD

Aww thank you very much for your interest! ≧(´▽｀)≦ It's really cool that some of you guys want to actually fund such a thing - I'd have thought you'd have enough of him killing you in BTD1 XD Unfortunately, I have no plans for a Rire game at the moment as I'm working on a webcomic which looks like it will take up all my free time (that being said, he will be in the webcomic at some point).

Nope! Although i can kinda see why you might think that lol.

Whatever that one is where he doesn't particularly care what someone else identifies as. It really makes no difference to him or how he will act.

There are viruses in the Nether that if contracted could potentially kill you, yes. Part of being a Royal is becoming a lot more robust than normal Demons though. As for if/when Rire dies, I dunno maybe either in a Battle Royale somewhere thousands of years down the line or by old age (which is rare for a Royal but not impossible if you play your cards right).

If you are asking if he has a heat/rut of some sort, he does not |D

[copperbadge]

Shana tova! I was thinking about you during services today when I too was tearing up at the prayers and the sound of the shofar. Wishing you well on your journey. Regardless of if you convert, I hope you are able to find home and solace in the beauty of Judaism

Aw, thank you! Sorry this response is so very late, I'm digging through my backlog and it's...large. But I hope your high holidays were both sweet and meaningful, and glad you thought of me!

I'm slowly working towards gaining more of the knowledge I need -- I'm strong on the theology and culture but a bit weak on the actual prayer and ritual, and I could use more history. But, as I've said before, Judaism's been around for thousands of years; it'll be there when I get there. :)

I've made peace with the fact that written Hebrew will probably always be beyond my ability to learn, so I'm working towards learning the transliteration pronunciation and memorization instead. It's shockingly difficult to find a digital siddur that has Hebrew, transliteration, and translation, but I've got a line on some print versions.

[the-gilded]

Hi everyone, here's a bit of a life/progress update for everyone following. I wish I had more to share right now, but I hope there will be more coming soon.

I've posted several times that Chapter 2 is coming soon, and I really have wanted that to be true, but I haven't quite been able to bring myself to finish it. I did recently manage to finish drawing new official art for each of the ROs, so here's a little preview of that (sorry, I wish I was better at drawing consistently):

Also, if you want to hang out and/or watch me talk about games I love, you can find me live on Twitch sometimes:

http://www.twitch.tv/faedrian_

Further explanation/vent/plans below:

As far as why I haven't managed to finish writing Chapter 2, it's just because my life has been sliding downhill for a pretty long time now, and it's hard to find the motivation to write anything nice when I feel this bad.

I guess I noticed things getting worse last year, after I caught Covid in February. I was sick for about a month, got really depressed, lost a lot of weight, developed new complications with my endometriosis and my eating disorder got a lot worse. Around the same time, I realized that my relationship was beginning to fall apart. I've been with my partner for ten years, and it hasn't always been stable, but I've fought hard to keep us going together even when things got rocky. Last year, they decided that they needed to start cutting stress out of their life. That led to them breaking up with me twice - both times, I begged them to stay and keep working on our relationship. I was terrified by the possibility that they could just end our relationship and take my whole life away from me, forcing me to leave my home and lose everything I've built especially when I was at such a low point already.

A few weeks ago, they decided to break up with me again, and right now it's looking like it's for real this time - they signed a lease with some friends the day after breaking up with me, and decided that they would just leave me to fend for myself so that they wouldn't be burdened with the "responsibility" of caring for me any longer.

So, I'm currently facing down the reality that I will likely have to give up the whole life I've built up over the last seven years of us living together. I don't have anywhere to live here - all my friends and family are hours or even days away by car. I was in the middle of searching for a new job when the breakup happened this time, but now I guess I can't really take a job here if I'm going to have to move away. I can't afford to live on my own even with the new jobs I was applying for, and I wouldn't feel safe by myself either. I've always lived with my family or with my partner. I may be moving across the country in the next two months - going Northwest to live with some friends that offered to find a place together, and my best friend lovingly offered to pay my moving expenses. I have no money in the bank (in fact my account is overdrawn as I type this), so this is all very stressful right now. I'm hopeful that I'll find a way to work things out, to get myself settled, and to find the will to be productive with my games again.

As far as plans go:

I've been making plans to start up a Patreon and Discord once I have at least a couple months of content backlogged - it would include Beta reading access for The Gilded and my other game jam projects, BTS previews of some other, larger projects I'm drafting, monthly SFW and NSFW sketches and short stories as voted by the Patrons, and eventually a tier to get your OC written into The Gilded. If that's of any interest to you, let me know! I think it would be really good for me to see people engaging with my content again, and I could honestly use the motivation.

Thank you for reading this far, and thank you for following as long as you have. I still love and intend to finish this project, I just need to get through this dark place to find the light on the other side. 💜

[billpottsismygf]

Doctor Who: Wish World

That was absolutely mad and I adored it! I spent the whole episode wondering what the hell was going on, but absolutely on the edge of my seat. All the cast were on top form, but Ncuti Gatwa in partular played it to perfection. I also adored the visuals, which were so beautiful but also incredibly creepy. The strange bone structures, the alien number crunchers, the 1950s aesthetics to go with the 1950s sensibilities, the frightening conformity of rows and rows of identical mugs.

I love the way it comments on regressive ideologies. There's been a real theme of that this series, with both Al and Conrad, but here it goes way beyond that. The Doctor/John Smith saying that Kate wouldn't have to work if Ibrahim married her, that terrifying moment when John Smith's queerness is under scrutiny, Shirley and her village of the dispossessed. The fact that those who don't fit into this oppressive ideal of a "perfect" world are both ignored and capable of seeing past the deception is so apt. I loved Ruby's role here as well. She immediately stands out as not fitting aesthetically with John Smith and Belinda's perfect white picket fence 1950s-style life, and I'm so glad she got to work with Shirley and her cohort.

Archie Panjabi is great as the Rani. I haven't finished watching the character's backlog, but it's interesting to see her so adept at the newfound magic of the Whoniverse, given that her whole thing has historically been hard science. I don't have much of an opinion yet on her bringing back Omega other than perhaps this is oversaturation of bringing back random Time Lords, but I'm willing to be convinced. Currently he's just a name I recognise. I've seen Rememberance of the Daleks (which involves the hand of Omega), but perhaps I ought to check out The Three Doctors for more of a grounding. I do also wonder why the Rani wants to bring him back, but hopefully we'll learn more next week.

I'm still intrigued by the Captain Poppy of it all. Is there more to her than we think? She seems able to see through the wish world when the adults around her can't, and the Doctor's final line is that 'Poppy is real, don't you know what that means?', which does suggest that there's something going on, but I suppose we'll have to wait to find out. Could she be connected to Susan's return? Is she somehow really the Doctor's daughter? Regardless, it was nice to see another brief flash of Susan on the TV!

Rogue also got a cameo, of course. How did he a) know what was going on and b) manage to get through? Will we get an answer for that at any point? Who knows! I'm on record as not being the biggest enjoyer of the episode Rogue, but I do like his character, and despite my complex feelings about the Doctor's feelings for Rogue, I adored what that whole thing brought to this episode all about conformity and queerness and difference from the system. I wonder if we'll see him next week or if he'll just remain in the hell dimension until the next time Jonathan Groff has some time to spare for Doctor Who.

This whole episode was fascinatinly weird, and I'm sort of sad that next week will probably more of a standard episode with the big bads of the Rani and Omega etc. Even if part two doesn't live up to its set up (which isn't unusual), this was so good that I'm really glad it exists just on its own merits! As always, I'm incredibly sad that this series is already coming to an end next week, but at least it's been a good romp and I can't wait to see how it wraps up.

Small things

That first shot of John Smith turning off his alarm was very Rose Tyler in Rose, and I loved it.

That Doctor Who book looked a bit too Harry Potter adjacent for my taste, but I did love that the author was I.M. Foreman. What a wonderful little detail!

It's also yet again framing Doctor Who as a story. Another running theme for this whole era!

Was that Susan Twist again in her get up from The Devil's Chord? I'm too faceblind for this!

That scene between Conrad and Mrs Flood was strangely sweet and I couldn't help sort of feeling for Conrad.

We finally got to meet some of Belinda's family! Not her dad yet, but it was nice to meet her mum and her auntie.

[lowpolyanimals]

How are you doing?

hey! I am doing much better these days, PMDD is kicking my butt every month still but I am doing pretty well considering. I had to reduce my hours in work to help reclaim some of my life that PMDD takes but it helps a lot so I am very grateful I am able to do that. I got married last year and now am living with my spouse so that has been a dream come true and is such a big help too! I still have way too many hobbies and counting (thanks neopets) for my time available but I am slowly rotating them all and making the most out of my time finally!

I am really sorry that I was away for so long. At the time that I left, I was just so overwhelmed due to my PMDD getting worse and becoming unbearable, working whilst ill, trying to catch up on work / life missed due to ill health etc. and it all got a bit too much for me. Even the thought of coming back to the blog after a couple weeks was too overwhelming (because of how I was running the blog at the time). Later on I had also deleted Tumblr from my phone in an attempt to reduce screen time but it meant that I stopped using it completely and I regret that it largely contributed to me staying away for so long.

I want to give this blog a big old reboot and get it up and running again but I realised that I need to change the way that I run the blog. Previously I had this HUGE backlog of submissions that caused me to have to spend hours and hours one day of my weekend to get through so many submissions. I wanted to just power through until eventually I’d get to the point where I’d just be able to handle submissions as soon as they come in then and there but there was just too many and it took too much of a toll and I hit breaking point. :(

So I’ve decided to just run the blog now how I've always wanted to - by dealing with submissions as and when they come in and opening/closing submissions to keep it to a manageable level (I'm sure this is how other blogs do it, I think I am just dumb lol). I will also post them immediately as and when they come in and only use the queue if I’m going to be posting several posts in a row to avoid spamming. It just means posting will be a bit more sporadic sometimes that’s all. However, in order for me to do this, I am going to have to omit the backlog (for now). I can always go back to the backlog and shave some off if I can handle it (or please feel free to resubmit anything I've not already posted).

I’ll make a new pinned post in a couple of days explicitly explaining the new changes to how the blog will be run behind the scenes, although honestly it’s not going to affect much on you guys side of things, you will still see the same content and submit the same way. I just want to add a rule to say please do not submit more than one post a day and that I’ll open/close submissions to keep things manageable. Submissions will stay off until that post comes out so just bear with me (🐻) a little longer!

Just want to say before I end this really long post (they always get so out of hand lol) that I MISSED YOU GUYS TOO and I LOVE YOU ALL and your kind messages made me so very motivated to get this going again, thank you! 🥺❤️ I can’t wait to bring you more of these little critters we love so much once again :)

[thewertsearch]

Let's kick things off with a mega-giga ask compilation!

I've spent the last couple of days working through the backlog, and I've been able to answer some quite old asks that were spoilers at the time they were sent.

@kintatsu asked: So, I was rereading your blog, and got to the post where you determine that John's 13th birthday was a Monday, and complain on his behalf that he couldn't really relax due to having the whole schoolweek ahead of him. Well, I checked, and the previous day was the first Sunday after the first full moon after the equinox, i.e. Easter Sunday. So it might have been a holiday week.

John entered the Medium shortly after Easter Sunday, and he did so by biting into an apple. Forget about the god tiers – his most powerful transformation is clearly Catholic Beast Mode.

Anonymous asked: The thing about knowing your Aspect, I think, is that it's the Aspect you most GET. I GET Space and Light, I understand them completely, they are suffused in my bones and my blood, they are writ large upon my brain and every base in my DNA. What aspect do you just GET?

To be honest, I don’t think I know enough about any Aspect to ‘get’ it.

If I had to choose, then I'd probably feel the most natural affinity for Life and/or Doom – and if was forced to pick one, I’d say I'm very slightly more drawn to Life, just based on vibes.

@mhafanlol2000 asked: I think the horrorterror’s plan (or the closest thing we can comprehend) is CHAOS-by which I mean LIFE. Skaia is order. If it can want, then it wants its players to follow the script it has written-the Alpha. It wants propagation, the snake to eat it’s own tail, blah blah blah. That is order. That is perfect servitude. That is NOT life. The gods, meanwhile, want chaos. It wants its servants to live. It does not tell people to do anything. It simply gives them the facts, and says “here is what you should do. You can not, you can do whatever the hell.” It wants romance, conflict, CHAOS. that is life.

And if this theory is accurate to the canon Life aspect, then I feel justified in my affinity for it. It falls fairly closely in line with my own philosophy.

@necrowyrm asked: When searching your blog I always type "thew" before Tumblr autocompletes your URL. That has become who you are to me.. Thew, Glorious Liveblogger, navigating the treacherous seas of Homestuck

Sally ‘Thew’ Ertsearch, reporting in. 🫡

Anonymous asked: there's actually another arthurian joke to do with dave's land/quest. have another look at the disc platform that bro stabbed. how would you describe the shape of that turntable?

Ayy, Dave's a Knight of the Round Turntable! Honestly, that'd be a pretty great name for his theme song.

@caliquill asked: kanaya vs rose would be absolutely hilarious but. kanaya IS the original "I Can Fix Her" girl for a reason.

Anonymous asked: the only real requirement for a name suggestion to be picked was that the firstname was 4 letters. but by really cool coincidence strider and lalonde are 7 letters, and egbert and harley are 6, and if you add those together its 4/13! similarly, both the trolls names were required to be 6 letters (i think hussie mixed and matched them actually, some of the firstnames were suggested as surnames and vice versa) so theres a similar case to be made for 6/12. but just doubling the same number i think holds less water than adding together two different numbers

Number symbolism is just very flexible in general. All Hussie really had to do was introduce a few 'important' numbers, and the fandom could start finding them everywhere!

Anonymous asked: This may be the wrong place to ask, but have you deleted your post of analyzing the Let the Squiddles Sleep song? I can't seem to find it anywhere.

Here it is. Hopefully you're able to see it now!

Anonymous asked: Will the Mega-Ask-Compilation and Liveblog Recap also happen? ~LOSS (19/2/23)

The former is currently taking place. The latter was planned, but after skimming my blog for a bit, I realized I didn't have as much to say about it as I thought I did. Plus, it's been ages, so I'm really excited to look at some new pages. We can leave the old ones for later - I'll probably do some sort of blog retrospective eventually.

Anonymous asked: i figure the trolls' battlefield went through a full set of dnd dice/platonic solids, plus maybe some other notable johnson solids like a truncated icosahedron (aka a soccer ball or buckminsterfullerene), before becoming a sphere. maybe the outer ring went through stages like simple torus, mobius strip, borromean rings or other fun knots, before becoming a mobius net. (not really sure what a mobius net is, mathematically, but that's apparently what the thing around the final form of the kid's battlefield is called.) or maybe something weird happens with that many prototypings, and the battlefield turns into a tesseract or a klein bottle or a menger sponge or a mandelbulb.

If you so much as look at the Battlefield created by the Gigasession, your brain will leak out of your ears.

@manorinthewoods asked: <3Dave, >3>John, >3oJade, <>Rose (by process of elimination) ~LOSS (5/6/23)

I don’t think either of the girls have worn a playing card symbol. The leaf on Jade’s Wardrobifier does kind of look like a spade, but John’s already got that quadrant on lockdown.

Anonymous asked: Reading stuff about skaia on this blog reminded me of madoka, and made me consider that skaia might be like kyube and the other incubators and sburb is skaias way of keeping the unerverse from decaying

Reading this ask makes me realize that Rose is a near-perfect mark for Kyubey.

There’s only one way to save your session, Seer. Form a contract with me, and become a magical girl.

Anonymous asked: man. i dont know what i expected to happen when you found it. but for The Baby Is You to be liveblogged in less than 20 words during a post was not the way i expected it to go

I know it’s not technically part of Homestuck canon, but it really feels like Homestuck canon to me - at least to the same degree as Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff, and I liveblogged that.

Anonymous asked: begging (lightheartedly) for you to add posts like LOLCAT and "this guy's an orb" to one of the liveblog tags. they're pretty funny, and it's nice to see off-the-cuff reactions like that, haha. imo it'd be a shame for new readers to miss those kind of posts

Done! I sometimes forget to tag posts like that, because I usually just fire them off and forget about ‘em.

@captorations asked: “Give me a set of rules, and I'll analyze the hell out them, every time.” hello fellow doom player. hope you like the color green

Based on ~ATH’s association with curses, as well as Sollux’s programming hobby, I think there’s a decent chance that Doom relates to coding in some way.

Coding is all about rules, so perhaps Doom, is, in fact, the aspect of rules and logic. I'm not sure why such an aspect would be named 'doom', but it's been obvious for a while that these aspect names aren't always literal.

Anonymous asked: I’d just like to clarify some terminology because it seems relevant, but Aradia isn’t a red blood, she’s a rust blood

[The blood colors all have canon names: Aradia = rust blood Tavros = bronze blood Sollux = gold blood Nepeta = olive blood Kanaya = jade blood Terezi = teal blood Vriska = blue blood (I like cerulean better tho) Equius = indigo blood Gamzee = purple blood Eridan = violet blood Feferi = fuchsia blood and Karkat has no official blood name, but people usually call him mutant blood or candy-red blood - C ]

Oh, there are official names for each color? That’s going to be helpful to disambiguate each blood caste, especially when we really start digging into troll culture and biology.

Anonymous asked: I do believe the top-left ship on the wall - no, Karkat doesn't have red eyes. […] It's probably Vrisrezi, yes, but it could also be Vriskat.

Yeah, I’m still not sure who this ship is supposed to represent.

They have Terezi’s eyes, but the hair and symbol look like Karkat’s. Plus, Nepeta hates this ship, which would make sense if it’s between her crush and someone other than her.

Honestly, my best guess is that it was meant to be Karkat, and the red eyes were just a mistake on Hussie’s part.

Anonymous asked: something I never thought about… is the blue blood sourced from equius or did he get a stock.

Aradia has real blue indigo blood in her veins, and it almost certainly belongs to Equius himself. He could have got it from a donor, but I personally doubt there was anyone else he could ask. Equius feels like he'd be an outsider, even to other indigo-bloods.

Anonymous asked: vriska would be a good strider

Vriska Serket raised by Bro Strider would be the most terrifying character imaginable. I don't even want to contemplate what that upbringing would do to her.

Anonymous asked: Any piece of lore hussie writes needs to contend with the fact that hussie is resolutely committed to the bit. Hence all the words on how different trolls are being entirely blasted aside by 'and then they're just grey humans anyway lmao'

That's the price of admission into Homestuck, for better or for worse. Hussie quite clearly enjoys screwing with us, and we have to take everything we see in the comic with a huge pinch of salt.

Anonymous asked: I'll disagree a bit on the phrasing that Eridan forces Feferi to <> him because firstly she doesn't even seem convinced that he would commit genocide and secondly she dropped him super easily once the lusus-feeding is no longer necessary. While understandable, that doesn't suggest to me someone who is obliged by Eridan's aggression to pacify him. I think she has much more agency in this relationship (or lack thereof I suppose) than that.

Feferi definitely had her doubts – but she must have believed that Eridan was dangerous to a certain degree, because that’s the basis of a moirallegiance.

Forced might not be the right word, but she certainly felt some amount of obligation to pacify him. She sure wasn’t in that relationship for the good of her health.

Anonymous asked: So, Vriska has a conversation with Karkat, where he says she seems to have blackrom feelings for Tavros, but that he doesn't think Tavros can even feel blackrom properly. Then she has another conversation with Tavros in which she antagonizes him, and he notices, but just kind of ignores it and doesn't respond emotionally. Then we see her make a huge dramatic redrom gesture and kiss him. She vacillated because he wasn't into her… incel behavior.

Yup. I’ve always held that Tavros never wanted anything to do with Vriska. He doesn't want to love or hate her - what he really wants is to live in a world where she doesn't exist.

Vriska’s refusal to accept this basic fact is one of the main reasons she’s decided to make his life a living hell.

Anonymous asked: I headcanon that troll blood is analog, but the empire culls non-digital colors because they make the troll race seem like a joke or something. Lol

If there were minor variations in blood color, the Empire probably wouldn’t want to acknowledge it, since the stratification of blood classes forms the basis of their society.

We haven’t seen any trolls besides our twelve (apart from Troll Will Smith) so we can’t compare the blood of two members of the same caste - but we can speculate. Human blood color is known to vary depending on its oxygenation level, and I imagine troll blood would reflect its current chemical composition in the same way.

Anonymous asked: Vriska must be seething while Karkat introduces the concept of quadrants to the reader. Imagine this basic and important facet of troll life, and you're just getting schoolfed it. (This message was sent on 20/10/22.)

This was a fun bit of weirdness from early Hivebent, wasn’t it? In retrospect, it's kind of hilarious that Karkat decided to infodump to Vriska about the obscure, niche topic of… dating.

@sanctferum asked: According to his formspring, Hussie's self-insert's classpect is Waste of Space. He also briefly considers Huss of Lips. This is obviously not meant to be taken seriously but. since you asked @absinthe-and-alabaster asked: i believe hussie said somewhere that FedoraFreak's classpect was "Gent of Piss" Anonymous asked: (not sure if this is technically a spoiler but) hussie has jokingly said that fedorafreak's class is a gent.

If Dad Egbert was a Player, then the Gent class would be forced into canonical existence, as the only class that could possibly define him.

Anonymous asked: If Vriska's control does require the victim to on some level want to do the thing, then Sollux's insistence that you do not under any circumstance eat the mind honey could be something he developed in response to that incident. So that if she ever controls him again, she won't be able to make him eat it.

Wow, I never considered that. That’s a very good (and tragic) take, and I think I'm at least locking it in as a headcanon.

Anonymous asked: the official extended zodiac actually has… 288 signs, if im doing my math right? and also probably hadn't yet been conceptualized when that page was posted (the earliest known evidence comes from 2015). i don't know if any thought was put into the number or if it was just pulled from their ass, but there was a running gag in hussie's q&as where he repeatedly threatened us with a 10,000 page intermission focused on 48 squiddles, each representing a sign from the alternian zodiac Anonymous asked: I believe the troll zodiac is one of the few things in HS lore that was truly retconned, there’s actually 288 signs.

Move over, 48 Squiddles. I want to hear about the 288-player clusterfuck that actually gave rise to Alternia!

@manorinthewoods asked: wheee, you got to the first god tiering! this probably opens up a load of new things to say, so, first off: do you think you need to have a full echeladder to god tier? vriska implied so.

She never outright stated that it was required, but I still think it probably is. You generally need to max out your class levels before you can prestige.

@morganwick asked: Believe it or not, you're still in the "Homestuck could have updated RIGHT NOW" phase of the comic's release schedule. The break after the Equius-Aradia kiss aside, the hiati you've heard horror stories about didn't start becoming a thing until the end of Act 5.

[this was around page 3000. still true at this page though - C]

Hussie’s sheer productivity at this stage continues to astound. Could you imagine having that much creative energy?

Maybe Hussie just drinks twenty coffees a day.

Anonymous asked: as someone who is Normal about aradia it's an absolute delight to see someone dig into her character. she's so fascinating to me. (also, fun fact, a while ago tumblr voted her the coolest character in all of homestuck. so there's that)

Aradia’s awesome, and I still don’t think her death is going to stick.

Her ghost was perfectly capable of existing without a body, so there's no reason she can’t survive her new body's destruction.

Anonymous asked: feferi hasn't just woken up, she won't be stuck asleep until 3 hours and 14 minutes into the future! timestamps, yo

Consider this the first mark on my otherwise impeccable record.

Anonymous asked: does cat have a troll/kidsona? itd be interesting to see a full 4 player session in art

[No kidsona, yes trollsona, but even a picture of her would spoil stuff from Act 6 😆 - C]

What she said. It’ll be a while until we can meet KATYAA SCRENR.

@mhafanlol2000 asked: Hey! You can just call me Fan. In all honesty I’m just some guy who likes your liveblog. He/him. I’m gonna list some fan aspects, and I want to see what you think they’d represent, and what abilities they’d give Law Dreams Might Shape Flow

Ooh, more fan aspects! These were a lot of fun to puzzle out the last time.

Law would be the aspect of command, instruction and agreement. An example power would be giving someone a simple rule they're compelled to follow, such as 'don't turn around'.

Dreams would be the aspect of ideas, motivation and symbolism. An example power would be the ability to detect people's idle thoughts - the things they're not even aware they're thinking about.

Might would be the aspect of growth, conflict and evolution. An example power would be the ability to temporarily enhance someone's Aspect abilities, at the cost of making those abilities harder to control.

Shape would be the aspect of form, encapsulation and topology. Shapeshifting is the most obvious application of this aspect, but it's appropriate.

Flow would be the aspect of persistence, momentum and continuity. An example power would be the ability to 'continue' something that has recently stopped. For example, if your PC ran out of power, they'd be able to keep it running for a while. The longer it had been previously running, the longer they could keep it running.

@martinkhall asked: I think Bro might have been raised entirely by shonen anime and My Little Pony Friendship is Magical (the version that existed only in the heads of the worst examples of Bronys). And puppets. Puppets were definitely involved in raising Bro. Anonymous asked: "He has no known relationship with any of the other parents, but was definitely getting foreknowledge of Sburb from somewhere. I’m not even sure I want to know what sort of childhood produces Bro Strider." well. i mean. he grew up with Lil Cal didn't he? the clearly haunted puppet from the sburban dreamscape of derse? it was what he dropped to earth with. i feel like that might explain at least a small part of, like, whatever he had going on.

That’s true. I don’t trust that puppet one bit, and we don’t know what it was up to before the start of the session.

I still suspect that the thing’s still just as alive as it was on Derse, and is just choosing to play dead.

Anonymous asked: I imagine you might've already been told this, but when checking out your FAQ I noticed you described PS/PQ/FS as "not exactly canon" and that you're less interested in liveblogging them because one of your favorite parts is watching all the story come together -- without spoiling anything, I find it pertinent to mention that Pesterquest & Friendsim definitely contribute to the wider "canon" even though dubiously canon themselves. Definitely "part of the story" so to speak.

Yeah, we’ll have to see what comes of this. The problem is that I’m still fuzzy on what ‘dubiously canon’ actually means.

Hopefully that will become more clear as I’m actually liveblogging these tie-in materials – which I am planning on doing. Only time will tell how in-depth the liveblog will actually be, though.

@manorinthewoods asked: In my Sundered opinion, Bec Noir is the best character design in Homestuck. I can't think of any other interesting designs at the moment, other than some which don't beat him and are spoilers anyway (like LE's). Which design do you find most interesting, out of the ones you have? ~LOSS (22/9/23)

I definitely agree that BecJack has one of the best designs in the comic. Plus, Scratch is so weirdly intimidating for a cueball-head.

Anonymous asked: My favorite part of PKWU is just how pointy Gamzee's chin is. It's so… Defined.

iT’s ToO lAtE, ErIdAn! I’vE AlReAdY DePicTeD MySeLf As ThE ChAd, AnD yOu As ThE SoYjAk >:o)

Anonymous asked: i need you to know ag canonically ripped off the sleeves on all of her shirts just to show off the robot arm

I believe it. I don't even need a source; this is just so true to Vriska's character that it's obviously correct.

@bladekindeyewear asked: If you and your ask screener decide that literary/external-media hero title examples without any details or explanation are alright to pass on unless they're too obviously revealing -- and those in and of themselves are usually in heavy dispute by classpect theorists -- I've long been of the opinion that Monkey D. Luffy and Peter Pan are the best possible literary examples of a Page of Breath.

All Pages of Breath must be associated with pirates. No exceptions.

Anonymous asked: unfun fact: the reason rose and jade dont have a lot of pesterlogs with eachother is just because their text colours were kinda eyestrainy together. thats it thats literally the whole reason!! god damn

Hussie: "I don't write Rose/Jade conversations because they’re hard to read."

Also Hussie:

Anonymous asked: you have officially passed my second favourite flash in literally all of homestuck. it's all so well hinted at beforehand but it still comes to punch you in the gut nonetheless Anonymous asked: My favourite thing in this flash is how the name of the flash isn't John: Rise Up, it's JOHN. RISE UP. it's WV sending a plead to John to not die. My second favourite thing is the way the music remixes Doctor (The theme for LoWaS). Anonymous asked: [S] JOHN. RISE UP. is one of my favorite flashes in all of Homestuck. Savior of the Waking World is some of Toby's best work What are your thoughts on our first taste of god tier? @violetsquare111 asked: So glad you liked Savior of the Waking World! One of my favorites in the comic for sure. It takes a lot of ideas from another of Toby's songs, Penumbra Phantasm, a song that… never actually got finished or officially released. There's still various renditions of it though, and the HS collection links a couple of em. (Some people have speculated that Penumbra Phantasm itself was never supposed to be a Homestuck song, and might end up being used in Deltarune, which would be cool as hell) Anonymous asked: It's crazy to think that just about 12 hours ago John was wearing silly disguises to fool his dad and now he's dying to become a god.

God time!

I do think it was the most emotional flash we’ve had, on the strength of the music alone. Savior of the Waking World goes hard as all hell.

Honestly, when WV started calling John a hero, and telling him to rise, it did start to give me some mild chills. Like, yeah – we know John’s a hero, but it feels extra special when it’s coming from someone who’s normally so irreverent.

@elkian asked: Welcome back, hope you're feeling better! I am losing it a bit over you IMMEDIATELY understanding how this coin flip sitch works, something about the narrative and reasoning doesn't match my brain so I've reread it multiple times with total understanding out of grasp and watching you dissect it halfway into the page is truly wild (delighted). Also feel like I understand it a lil better with your analysis.

Thank you! This message was actually sent the last time I returned from a pause, so apologies that I’m one hiatus late in answering it.

@royalvorpal asked: I just reread your entire blog in anticipation. Anonymous asked: This is such a good liveblog, I'm rereading it again and you are really letting me relive the pleasant parts of my middle school years. Reading this blog makes me feel like I'm back on the school bus talking to my friend about the newest update. Thank you for doing this 💛 Anonymous asked: That return page didn't have any sound, so misleading! (I jest, nice to see you're back.) ~DJ @manorinthewoods asked: Hahahah, we are BACK! Lovely, I've missed this liveblog. Most in-depth Homestuck liveblog I'm aware of, looking forward to the restart! ~LOSS (29/3/24) @popcornsalty asked: So excited to see you back!!! :D @chaosorchestrator asked: welcome back! It's good to hear that you're planning on getting back into it! I hope things have been going ok for you in the meantime! @necrowyrm asked: HAPPY 4/13 (OR AS THE ENLIGHTENED KNOW IT: 13/4) AND WELCOME BACK!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you for your votes of confidence, and happy 13/4 to you all!

@rippledphysique asked: Just found this blog and devoured it in a few days. I am selfishly wishing you the best in health and life so that it may return one day… @elkian asked: Hey Sally! Just wanted to wish you well on the recovery, the plague is no joke and I hope you've been able to enjoy some kind improvement. And that 2024 will be kinder, as well. Anonymous asked: wishing you the best in your interim, hopefully you can get a better position where you're not prone to burning out! Anonymous asked: Hope you're doing ok!! I miss seeing your cool liveblog on my dash @kittycatttmattt asked: Poor girl… Got killed by the schedule

Thanks for all the well-wishes, as well. Really, it wasn’t the schedule that was the issue – I just had a lot going on in the background last year. That’s all over now, though!

Anonymous asked: yeah, Homestuck's back babeyyyyy - the site was crashing because of traffic and everything @calamitascalliope asked: You coming back from your break resurrected Homestuck's corpse hggfffdd Anonymous asked: i think this actually is the first time homestuck has updated since you started liveblogging lol - homestuck 2 has been inactive assumed abandoned since december 25th 2020. also happy slightly belated blogiversary btw - you've been delighting us with your journey for two years now! @heliotropopause asked: New Homestuck upd8 just dropped. Apparently. Anonymous asked: what are the odds that you start liveblogging again the same exact day that postcanon comes back from the dead? Anonymous asked: crazy news. so literally just today, october 8th 2023, hussie has officially given complete free license to the newly formed "homestuck independent creative union" (HICU) to create content and monetize it with the homestuck brand however they see fit, with zero creative or financial control from any corporations or even hussie themself, though hussie has said they're available for consultation whenever the HICU wants their input. the HICU seems to be made up of people the community largely has respect for, and the person heading all of this up is James Roach, who is one of the most widely respected individual who has been inolved in homestuck "post canon" (ie. after homestuck itself ended). nobody was expecting any of this, it's completely bonkers. hopes are looking pretty high for homestuck compared to where they were merely a day ago.

Throwback to the day I personally resurrected Homestuck.

Has anything come of this since, actually? I haven’t heard anything about this new comic – although I do scroll in the opposite direction any time I see a reference to Homestuck, so I guess it makes sense that I wouldn’t.

@corporalotherbear asked: What’s your favorite Pokémon?

Contrarian, that I am, I’ll instinctively gravitate to Missingno., if only for the nostalgia factor. Gen 1 glitches were my first real experience with pulling back the curtain of a game’s code, and taking a look at what lies beneath.

My favourite official Pokémon are Porygon-Z, Shedinja, Reuniclus and Metagross!

@heliotropopause asked: Breath/Light is an interesting one, because the ‘Mixolydian’ implies a musical theme, and I thought Time was the musical Aspect. Maybe it’s not that simple. They've all got a musical reference in the name- they are called fraymotifs, after all. Anonymous asked: The Fraymotifs are all musical references actually. E.g. Breath/Time is "Ivories in the Fire", the ivories in question being John's piano keys. A fraymotif is a battle theme. Anonymous asked: ivories in the fire is a musical theme, especifically a Rap term used by Snoop Dogg. So yeah it's connected to Dave Anonymous asked: re: fraymotifs: you pointed out "mixolydian", but that's not the only musical term there. feather "cadence", pneumatic "progression", even fray "motif" itself! hell, the building where you buy these things has an emblem with a crossed sword and music note! so i think this might be less a situation of "need to rethink time aspects association with music" and more "fraymotifs have a musical association also" Anonymous asked: if you look a bit closer at those names, (including the one "fraymotif",) you may realize that "mixolydian" isn't the only musical term referenced…. @galaxa-13 asked: You say the breath/Light Fraymotif implies a musical theme, but they all do! Fraymotif is a portmanteau of "fray" (to fight) and "leitmotif" (repeated musical phrase). Each Fraymotif name implies a musical theme.

Dang it. Yup, they’re all pretty obvious references to music.

I wrote that post the day I was trying to wrangle our family PC into running the Homestuck Collection without lag, so I was a little distracted at the time. Please direct all complaints to Windows XP.

[la-galaxie-langblr]

May reflection/goals check-in

Academic 🎓

Achieve a 70% overall average for the year 🟡 - I've had 3 exams in the past month and I think all of them went pretty OK, it's still going to be a while before I find out my results though. Also need to keep studying for my final French exam in a few days 😔

Attend at least 1 volunteering event ✅ - yep! did another community gardening session but this time in a different location, it was great fun and as a bonus I'm back on track for my volunteering hours :)

Complete all year abroad requirements in a timely manner 🟡 - I submitted all of my uni's requirements (for now) this week and I'm currently waiting on the French equivalent of the Department of Education to send me some forms

Wellbeing/hobbies/social 🌻

Get back up to date with devotionals 🟡 - still a fair bit of backlog to work through but I'm getting there

Read at least 3 books ✅ - yippee!! I've read The Golden Raven by Nora Sakavic, Prayer for the Crown Shy by Becky Chambers and Diaries of a Bookseller by Shaun Bythell, and I'm pretty close to finishing another book, The Art of Logic by Eugenia Cheng!!

Improve my swimming best - I haven't gone swimming for weeks and it's likely I've lost a lot of stamina, unsure if I can get sub-1-hour 1500m at this point but I'm still going to try

Attend a special event at least twice a month ✅ - This month I took part in 2 ttrpg sessions, visited another city with my friends for a weekend trip and had some people over for a Fajita Friday dinner :D

Spend at least 5 minutes outside every day 🟡 - once again I've been bad with daily tracking but I still think I'm doing pretty well

Create 5th edition of Hot Enby Language Summer plan - not started yet but I should probably get a move on given I want to start it in (checks calendar) 2 weeks

Side quests/bucket list/things to look forward to 🍄

May: possible day weekend trip to another city with my uni friends - yeah!! and it was sooooooo much fun

June: start of summer! maybe seeing my friends at some point but I have a lot of hours at work to do so we'll see

Eat 1 full meal with chopsticks 🟡 - I ate quite a lot of Greek salad with chopsticks!! yes not the usual thing to eat with chopsticks but my housemate also wanted to give it a go, we had about 2/3rds of the salad between us and got really good at picking up both larger cucumber slices and smaller pieces of feta :D now I just need to make a noodles meal and see if I can eat it all

Run at least one week of couch to 5k - not started yet

Create a mini zine - not started yet, but in other craft-related news I bought a punch needle kit recently and I've had a lot of fun with it!! tbh even if I don't make a mini zine next month I might check this off anyways because the spirit of it was to do a Creative Activity

Local museum day ✅ - I had fun at the exhibits! Glad I made time to go and see them

Take stock of my incomplete online courses - not started yet

June will not be as exciting given that I'm moving home and starting the summer work grind, but life can't be exciting all the time!!

[rachirdsims]

Updates/Where I've Been:

Oh wow! I really just up and left LOL. I started the new year with the goal to have my queue full so it could run while I was really busy with work, and while I got far, I just stopped.

If you don't know, I am a teacher and the end of the school year absolutely fried me. I couldn't find the brain power to edit the backlog of what I have with 100 SuperBabies. I also started reading a lot more and playing some more on my PS5. I just finished Clair Obscure!

I'm currently going through the backlog, editing up to where I currently am in the game, and getting all the pages set up. It seems like the leaks/teasers are all pointing to fairies, so this challenge will be up and running for fairy baby daddies ASAP!

That being said, if you haven't seen my recent post, I am updating 100 SuperBabies a bit. Starting with babies 25/26 (Lumos and Nox), I am making all occult children work on their skill tree to age up. It's been a nice change of pace. When the new occult is added, I'll be doing a banner update also. Seems fitting to add werewolves and fairies to it.

If you got to the end of this long text post/brain dump, thank you! I am excited to be back :D I will also be putting all the children up for download soon.

[sflow-er]

Writing tag game

Thank you so much for the tag @starvalisedham!

I'm going to follow your example and put a cut here...

How many works do you have on AO3? Nine. -

What’s your total AO3 word count? 356,524... Sounds like a lot, but the number is skewed by one 238k longfic. -

What fandoms do you write for? Only Young Royals since I started again. I'm not going to name the fandoms for which I wrote before my 14-year hiatus, but most of them were anime. -

What are your top 5 fics by kudos? Other people's secrets (1,245) Matters of adjustment (198) The real deal (186) Like you better (161) Last chance (138) I write (mostly ace) fic about background characters in a fandom that leans heavily towards the juggernaut ship, so with that in mind, I'm very proud of these numbers! -

Do you respond to comments? I always respond to comments on my WIPs! Those mainly come from a handful of regulars, and the comment section is a lovely little community for discussing each chapter. I also used to respond to every comment on my finished works, but I've had too much on my plate in the last year or so to keep it up. Lately, I have actually been so low on "spoons" that even a couple of comments from readers who had related to the story in meaningful ways have been left hanging... I don't think I'll ever clear the backlog but I will get to those particular comments eventually! ETA: This game gave me the kick I needed to reply to one of them! Yay! -

What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? My August character study/background fic Årnäs, February 2016. It depicts him as an isolated and impressionable twelve-year-old who idolises his manipulative and emotionally abusive father and has difficult feelings about/for his absent mother, and it does not end on a cheerful note. -

What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? All my finished Walty fics end happily! It was a conscious choice I made when I started writing them as an ace/allo pairing. As to which is the happiest, I guess it's a matter of opinion. Maybe Other people's secrets, as the long time spent with the characters and their struggles adds to the payoff, but you could also argue for the shorter fics which are fluffier throughout. -

Do you get hate on fics? I have received some anon hate here on tumblr for posting the same kinds of takes that I write in my fics, but the response to my actual fics has always been lovely. Some of my regular readers may occasionally question something, but they are always nice about it. We have great discussions! Oh, and I do have one rude public bookmark on OPS. It upset me a bit but I wouldn't necessarily count it as hate. -

Do you write smut? Not at present, no. I did write some before my long hiatus, but back then, I was just emulating what I had read. Somehow, it was easier to take the scenes and the characters' supposed experiences at face value when I had no personal frame of reference. I mean, smut is always exaggerated fantasy, and there are plenty of ace writers who excel at it! But to me personally, as a grey ace who struggled for years with my very bland experience of sexual attraction, anything I write just feels disingenuous and takes me to a really weird head space. I don't want to write a story or scene where I can't buy into the characters' thoughts and emotions at all, and I just can't seem to manage that with smut. Still, a day may come when I feel differently. You never know! -

Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written? Nah, I'm not really creative enough to combine storyverses. -

Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not that I know of! Although everyone who's got unlocked works on ao3 has probably had their works scraped into the CommonCrawl dataset (and potentially others) used to train AI, and I only started locking mine halfway through 2023 so... -

Have you ever had a fic translated? Nope. -

Have you ever co-written a fic before? Not co-written, I don't think that would work for me as even the thought of a beta reader stresses me out. But I did ask my spouse (who has extremely relevant professional experience) to help me get August and Carl Johan right in ÅFeb16! It was a really great experience. -

What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? I've got two languishing WIPs on ao3 at the moment, but I fully intend to finish both of those. I also have some unpublished ones: a one-shot of August and Rousseau at Årnäs, and a multi-POV Walty + Stedrika + Madisander fic. I still have some hope of finishing the one-shot someday, but the multi-POV one is probably doomed. -

What are your writing strengths? I've been told my dialogue is good and the more straightforward style I use for it contrasts nicely with my frillier style of prose. Also, people have said they like my characterisations and the way I write (romantic and other) relationships. I'm good at research and worldbuilding, and I like to think the overall quality of my writing is okay when I'm not too stressed. -

What are your writing weaknesses? I'm too wordy and write my teenage characters too mature, but those weaknesses pale in comparison to my problems with compulsive editing, perfectionism, and excessive self-criticism. I get stuck in rewriting loops and easily spiral into writer's block. Oh, and I'm terrible at maintaining a healthy life/writing balance. I neglect my wellbeing and burn myself out when I feel creative, and when real life gets stressful, the quality of my writing declines or I can't write at all. -

Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? I do not mean to criticise anyone who likes to use it, everyone can do whatever they like in their own stories! But as a professional translator, my work is all about conveying a message written in one language in another language, as fluently as possible. I can't just turn that mindset off for writing. If I write a story about Swedish-speaking characters in English, I'm going to approach it the same way I'd approach the translation of a Swedish story into English. The English dialogue is already understood to be in Swedish, so to me personally, it makes no sense to render random bits of it in Swedish. (Of course, a character suddenly speaking a language other than Swedish is a totally different matter, but I assume the question isn't about that.) Not to mention that languages work differently, from word choice and connotations to grammar and from communicative conventions to thought patterns. My focus is on making the dialogue flow in English, and I'm too much of a perfectionist to mix in phrases or sentences that a native Swedish speaker might not even say in that context. (That goes both ways as I also try my best not to use fully English-based word plays etc., but sometimes they slip by me.) Again, that's just my opinion and the logic I apply to my own fics. Everyone who disagrees with me is just as valid! -

First fandom you wrote for? I wrote a fix-it fic for Final Fantasy X in my English notebook back in seventh grade. Never posted it anywhere, but it still counts! -

Favourite fic you’ve written? Other people's secrets. It was the first fic I wrote after all those years of thinking I'd never write again, and considering how massive a project it was, I'm enormously proud of myself for having finished it. It's one of the best stories I've ever written, and one of the most meaningful (to me personally, and I guess also to some of the people I've heard from). That being said, I am also extremely proud of ÅFeb16, which is my most mature writing so far - and of my outlined version of The Windsor! I've only managed to post one chapter of the latter, but if and when I eventually finish it, I think it will be my third favourite. It's an aged-up retrospective and explores some themes I've actually wanted to write since outlining OPS back in 2021.

Phew, that was the last question! Thanks for reading all this way! <3 No-pressure tags: I feel like most of my writing mutuals have been tagged already, but maybe @silvagrey @sunnyelfs @crownedwille would like to join...?

[beesmygod]

one webcomics trend I've noticed for a bit is comics where the creator casts a wide net and publishes to as many sites as possible, so like there's a tumblr mirror, a webtoons mirror, a tapas mirror, a twitter mirror, I've even seen one that has a tiktok mirror (god). Some of these even have the decency to actually have their own website

the idea was to cast the widest possible net in order to get the maximum audience possible, as this was the excuse for people using webtoons despite it sucking raw hot dogs but i dont understand how on earth this strategy could ever work lol

full lol i love to hear myself talk damn. fucking. subnormality webcomic behavior

anyway to highlight the uselessness of google analytics, these are my analytics arranged on "looker studio", a google product i guess they forgot about, in order to make sense of the useless shit they're showing me. you can see this enormous traffic spike from a traffic bot farm advertising their services by ruining your metrics. you can no longer filter these urls from your data.

full image

here's my google adsense conspiracy theory from me shedding light on why i think (STRONG EMPHASIS ON "THINK". IM HYPOTHESIZING) with commentary from someone who knows way more about the subject than my armchair observations.

my marketing strategy is to talk bullshit with people with similar interests while letting people know when my comic updates twice a week. if they want to read it, they can. they're not stupid, they don't need to be forced into reading it if they want to. i assume most of my readers are as broke as i am so i don't hound them to give me money they don't have. i'll never run ads again unless its like. for a friend's thing. hand-cultivated by me. im not looking for a wide audience, i'm looking for an audience of people who "get it" and can see an inherent value in what i create. if they have some spare cash, i make my barrier to entry on my patreon extremely low; 1 dollar a month and you can see things early and go through a backlog of author commentary and design stuff and rewards im sooo behind on im so sorry. im so sick i promise, im coming back!!! anyway i just want real human people to have a chance to see things and enjoy things without making it a fucking hassle, you know.

the most organic, actual traffic i got from my site is from a friend's webcomic that links to mine. 11 people read a lot of pages! that's genuinely making my head spin! that's great! i hope they liked it and will check in again. i love the comic they came from so they are clearly ppl of taste lol.

oh uh. and heres my comic lol. for any cantankerous gay old losers out there.

[lynxgriffin]

Small Update

Hey everyone, just wanted to give a little bit of a heads up here that there's probably going to be a slowdown in art for a couple of weeks. I know I've got a giant backlog of both regular doodles and Eldritchrune asks in my inbox, but right now my day job's a bit more intense than usual, and I've also got some real rough family stuff that I'm going through. I'm also still working on the next longer Eldritchrune comic (the Kris sacrifice scene), but since it's a long one I'm not yet halfway through it.

I'll keep answering questions in the inbox, and there will still be FPFN on Friday nights, but there will probably be a lot less art streams and art posting until I can get through this real life stuff and catch up with the huge backlog. I'm hoping in about two weeks or so it'll be back to normal in terms of art.

Thanks always for following, liking things and sending comments...have a happy Alphys for your patience!!

[superfruitland]

artblock + exhaustion combo hit me good, still working through it so posting is going to be slow for a little bit here.

i miiiiight post more of my unfinished wips and other stuff i've drawn here and there that i've got laying around, just sitting in the drafts just waiting to be posted, but we'll see! i have a whole backlog of stuff i've just forgotten to post, lol.

oh, and i'll get to all of your asks and requests eventually, slowly but surely! :>

[hush-writes-preg]

State of the Blog

Oh boy… where do I even start?

It's been a hot minute since I did a State of the Blog post, and for good reason. Do you know what happens when you study full-time for a master's degree while also juggling almost full-time freelance work, an acute soft tissue injury, a disabled primary partner, a sibling's wedding, recently unearthed childhood trauma, and the maintenance of a small farm?

It's called BURNOUT, baby!

Hole-y shit, Tumblr. I do not recommend taking on that amount of mental weight all at once. I don't even recommend taking even a part of it on all at once. Yes, I know I am a stubborn sucker for punishment.

Because of the stress, I was delayed in completing some commissions. And since some commissions were delayed, I felt guilty about writing new content (or even engaging with Tumblr), so I… just didn't.

I'm not gonna pretend that everything is okay right now, or even the slightest bit hunky-dory. The mental crash I suffered ended up losing me some income that I desperately needed, and I don't know how I'm gonna pay my bills this month. I don't have the spoons to take on more commissions for at least another month or two, and I don't feel right about promoting a Patreön when I haven't been consistently posting. I do have a tip jar if anyone is feeling generous (just remember the rule: anything written in a donation message needs to be rated G and not reference Tumblr), but I know that a lot of y'all are struggling too. So it's hard to ask for help.

All that said, I still live, and I'm working on getting back into the things I love while also reducing what I've got on my plate. Therapy (physical, mental, and pharmaceutical) is helpful, as are cat snuggles. The backlog of old asks is doing wonders for my creativity. I'll get through it. And this blog will return to its former horny glory in time.

[subwaytostardew]

▽ Adoptable Joltik  - Sidetracked Events⚡️

I added a 7-event (more like 3, really) storyline included as an update to the Adoptable Joltik mod. It consists of Emmet not taking loss well. He misses his Joltik. He doesn't want to bother you about it. He will get back on track eventually.

These play when you enter the backwoods/mountain pass between 6:00 and 10:00 AM after seeing the adoption event and have at least 8 hearts with Joltik. Enter the mountains at the same time for the 5th event (with Ingo). Each event unlocks a new line of daily dialogue from Joltik and starts a cooldown for the next event to not start until after 4 days. The final (7th) event requires 9 hearts with Joltik.

As always... Commentary under the read-more.

▷ Station Steward Thylak

This update didn't really have any planning. It was a spontaneous decision to make more events and all the content was written as I coded so it's a bit rougher than previous events.

I've been wanting to update the Joltik mod to use Emmet's new recolored spritesheet and lock adoptability behind 8 hearts as intended (and also... fix the event requirements since I realized it was set to 10 hearts instead of 8... oops). The file was also zipped in a way that removed the containing folder so it made using mod loaders like Stardrop and Vortex more finicky.

If you've already seen the adoption event, there wouldn't be much incentive for downloading an update since Emmet doesn't appear outside of events. I'm not ready to release him as a full NPC to the general public just yet! His heart events are still broken. I dread going back and fixing them. I got a bit burnt out from working through my backlog of things to do for the mod and wanted to switch tracks from pixel art (so many portraits...). Eventing is my favorite thing to do regarding the mod, so I decided to make more events to include in the update as a break of sorts (not working on the mod? Taking an actual break? Why, I'd never!). More events are the perfect solution for me wanting to show off the new art for Subway to Stardew while also not implementing submas as full NPCs in the Joltik mod.

I could make Emmet's 9-heart event but... I feel like that's more of a Subway to Stardew thing than an Adoptable Joltik thing... if that makes any sense. I might include it later when I get around to writing/coding it, but I thought it would be a bit abrupt to add in the Joltik mod since you don't really get to befriend Emmet as intended there. There's also some people who aren't obsessed with submas and do download the Joltik mod for well, Joltik! Only Joltik. I went into eventing with that in mind and well...

I missed Emmet. I wanted him to be clingy again. I think you can tell where I got a bit self-indulgent. Making a mod is a lot of work and if I have the ability to turn Stardew into an Emmet friendship simulator, I'm going to make the most out of it. I need my emotional support Emmet to keep me on track. So for people familiar with Subway to Stardew and do like submas, you can get Emmet hugs at 9 hearts with Joltik now because I got derailed. Yippee!

The sneaking around in the mountain pass part was just silly. Since you can't visit Emmet in the Adoptable Joltik mod, I wanted to write around you not being able to find him. He's actively avoiding you now. Whether or not you notice him doesn't matter. He's not going to talk to you. It's safer that way.

I was thinking that Emmet doesn't take loss or changes in his routine very well; adopting Joltik would cause him to split tracks with you for a little bit. He's clingy and can't stand the few he cares about being gone even a little bit. He overthinks Joltik being happier with you so his inferiority complex flares up and he gets insecure about you forgetting him, too. He's jealous of you being a two-car train and he misses having Joltik aboard. He knows it's wrong to direct his frustrations at you since all you did was make Joltik happy.

There is a lot derailing his train of thought. While it's hard for him to stay on track, he still cares about you; you're still his best friend and favorite passenger (at the end of the line...). He doesn't want to split tracks forever, so he'll steer himself away in case if he accidentally lashes out or you end up thinking he's annoying with his visits for Joltik. He doesn't want you to hate him. He just wants to make sure Joltik still cares about him and still care for them while he takes the time to adjust to the changes in his routine. He's still frustrated with you, but that's his problem, not yours. He knows that. He thought it was a good idea to avoid you until he adjusted.

After all of that, his frustrations die down and he's a little deprived of his favorite (not-Joltik) passenger. He's clingy again. He won't let anyone derail him. Not even you. But he's back on track!

[karatekels]

(Before you get mad because my Master List isn't currently my pinned post, you can find it here)

Well, I was hoping to give you all a more positive, happy update... but now you get a mixed bag.

I found out yesterday that my beautiful, wonderful PhD supervisor got my graduate funding extended for another year, meaning that all the extra work that I've either done or signed up to do this year is just a nice, extra little windfall that means I don't have to worry about money as aggressively as I have been, so that's a win! I cried happy tears for a very long time.

Unfortunately, this week my chronic fatigue which has been slowly going away over the past year has decided to start coming back.

I've touched on my chronic fatigue and pain a bit here before, but the gist of it is we don't really know what's causing either or how to treat either. At least I'm in Canada, so I haven't had any medical debt relating to this, but on the downside our medical systems are so backlogged I haven't been able to delve into very many tests to really get to the bottom of it. I won't rant about the pain because I've been dealing with it for most of my life and, as shitty as it is, I can usually still coexist with it, but the fatigue...

OH, THE FUCKING FATIGUE.

For me, my fatigue isn't wanting to sleep in longer in the morning or something I can chase away with coffee, or something I can just yawn through as I go about my day - it's an infuriating and debilitating clusterfuck. It usually means I don't sleep well during the night, and I will randomly be unable to function for hours at a time. I can't really think properly, my limbs will go numb, and I usually just slug out on the couch until it passes. No amount of sleep will make the sleepiness go away, and when it comes on, there's nothing I can do (it's a good thing that I don't drive, because if it came on while I was behind the wheel I would pretty much have to immediately pull over, lock the doors and pass out).

The good news (as I'm trying to see it, anyway) is that between my body being largely useless and my finances no longer being as much of an issue as anticipated, I can - and have to be - a bit gentler with myself, meaning I'll probably be at home more than I already am, and looking for a way to escape.

aka "MORE DAYDREAMING AND SUBSEQUENT WRITING!"

I can't promise I'll be churning things out the way I was last summer (jeez, remember last summer? what the hell was I thinking...) but I can pretty much guarantee I'll be writing a lot more than I have been so far this year, and I hope you're looking forward to that possibility as much as I am!

Basically, I just wanted to check in to thank you all for your patience, explain my lack of writing this year, and encourage those of you who are healthy to really appreciate it. I turn 30 in less than two months, and so much of my life (and pretty much my entire adult life) has been impacted by these unpredictable, unfixable problems and it really sucks. So, if you can do a cartwheel, a wheelkick or some kind of jump for joy, please do it for yourselves, and know that I'd join you if I could!

Thanks for reading, and we'll be back to your regularly scheduled smut soon, ya filthy animals!

- KarateKels

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Tl;dr: Good and bad things are happening but hopefully both mean you'll be getting more writing from me?