#as mentioned in my last patreon blog

[hexiva]

Roleplay Is Not Dead Nor Doth It Sleep

There's a post going around about how text-based, freeform roleplay is dead, and I was typing up a huge response to this, with an accompanying guide on how to find roleplayer in 2024, when I realized it might have a bigger reach if I made it its own post. So here's that guide.

I hesitate to say that there isn't a problem with the new format of social media making roleplay more difficult to find, but in the desire to make that point, the OP of the original post has left people with the idea that there's no way for them to get into freeform text roleplay in 2024. Which just isn't true! Here, look at all the ways.

Forums

The link to RPG-Directory to find roleplaying forums is a good start. Once you've found a forum RPG, even if you don't join, there's usually an 'advertising' section on that forum where other forum RPGs post their ads - this may help you to find forums that don't advertise on RPG-D.

Another really good forum to find roleplay on is Barbermonger. Barbermonger is focused on connecting people for one-on-one roleplays.

This last one's going to be weird, but it turns out that there are still people seeking roleplay on the Gaia Online forums after all these years. I think this is delightfully retro and then crowd there seems a little older than average. No pre-existing knowledge of Gaia required.

Tumblr

You can also find forum roleplay groups (as well as tumblr and Discord groups) right here on Tumblr. Usually, the thing to do is to use the search function - search for "[genre] rp" or "[fandom] rp" and sort by "latest." (If you sort by Top, you are likely to find dead RPs.) For example, here's fantasy rp, historical rp, and marvel rp. You can also try jcink rp, as most roleplay forums are hosted on Jcink these days, or discord rp, depending on your favored platform.

There are also tumblr blogs specifically dedicated to advertising roleplays. I'm not super familiar with these nowadays, but just in the process of searching those tags above, I found these:

Jcink Tinder

RPG Adverts

RPings

There are more, I just don't know them off the top of my head.

Reddit

Listen, don't run away, I swear it's good now - I swear Reddit is good now -

Reddit is a good place to find Discord roleplays. It's a little heavier on smut-only roleplays than other platforms mentioned here, but it's not impossible to find sexless, plot-based roleplay here either. Most ads are for one on one RP, but you can find groups mixed in here too. The big subreddits for text-based freeform RP seem to be:

r/DiscordRP

r/RoleplayPartnerSearch

r/roleplaying

r/Roleplay

Some of these have weird rules about what you can put in your ad, and I don't remember which ones, so read carefully and don't get discouraged if your ad is initially removed.

Discord

In 2024, Discord is by far the biggest and most popular platform for roleplay, and it has its own native roleplay advertising hubs. Here are a bunch:

roleplay partner hub

Rockin Roleplay

The Roleplay Garden

roleplay help

the roleplay connection

RP Central

Roleplay Central

Roleplay Hub

Barbermonger also has a Discord server

Roleplay Meets: Reborn

RP Hub

The Scribes Guild

DM Rp Village

cherry blossom! roleplay hub

DM-RP

Roleplay Round Table (21+)

The Historical Syndicate (specifically for historical roleplay)

The Roleplayer's Directory

If you can't find the Discord roleplay you want on here, you can also try Discord hub websites, like Disboard. These work similar to tumblr tags - search for [genre] rp or [fandom] rp.

Other

The original post specifically mentions that 'all the old "omegle but for role play" type websites died out ages ago'. This is mostly true, but not quite! There's still Rolechat. It's a little janky, but what it needs more than anything is a bigger user base. Their Discord server is also a good place to find one on one discord roleplay. It is, of course, free, but if you want to support its development, they have a patreon.

Please reblog this post, and add your own tips on how to find roleplay!

[back2bluesidex]

Hard Luck - JJK & KTH (18+) - Masterlist/Announcement

◆ Pairing: CEO Jungkook X Fem employee Reader X Legal advisor Taehyung. 

◆ Summary: You have a good face, a nice body, a fat amount saved in your secondary bank account, a stable job that you love, loving friends and family, you are good in bed. You have almost everything other than a good luck in love. Sleeping around with random dudes don’t feel enough when your friends are getting married and having kids. If you are being honest, you have started getting bored of this prolonged singlehood already. 

Your last light of hope fades away when your work crush, aka the hot guy from the legal department, Kim Taehyung (with whom you might or might not have slept once, okay! twice!), asks you to set him up with your work best friend (who, apparently, is the most asked out woman of the company). But what you don’t know is that the CEO of the company has taken a liking to you and has set out on a mission of winning your heart. 

But wait… Taehyung might have started developing feelings for you in the process of receiving your help!!!

◆ Theme: Romance, drama, light angst, my poor attempt of humor, fluff and eventual smut. office romance au. co-workers to lovers au.

◆ Warnings: Will be mentioned in each chapter accordingly. NSFW!!!

◆ Word count: Will be mentioned in each chapter

◆ Minors and karens are not allowed in this blog

◆ Taglist is closed.

◆ A/N: Just as I promised, here is jk x reader x tae series. and I swear it's not gonna be as angsty as the last one. also, it is loosely very very loosely based on business proposal. Hope you all like it just as much as WDBHG. I will try to post once a month but as of now, it's tough to promise anything.

Masterlist | Patreon (Early access available for Patreon members)

Chapter Index: -

Prologue

Chapter summary: First time is a turn-of-events. Second time is... what?

Chapter 1

Chapter summary: Two meetings - One went good - another went downhill.

Chapter 2

Chapter summary:

Chapter 3

Chapter summary:

Chapter 4

Chapter summary:

Chapter 5

Chapter summary:

Chapter 6

Chapter summary:

Chapter 7

Chapter summary:

Permanent Taglist:

@phenomenalgirl9 @variety-is-the-joy-of-life @chimchimmarie @coffeedepressionsoup @meowstake @vonvi-blog @nochuel @chimmisbae @i-have-no-life-charlie

[moyokeansimblr]

Patreon requests from xoxosims (I can't @ you?). So it's the Hide & Seek Top from Trillyke and then the same top paired with Puresims Cualquiere Denim Jacket. Then Arethabee Rosa Skirt paired with the Jem Slouchy Boots from BustedPixels, the two Nancy recolors from Wannabe-Cartoonist-Blog, and then the boots as pantsless bottoms 👍 Got all that?

Everything is AF and TF. Have morphs, except the denim jacket doesn't have a preg morph because it just was not looking good. Sorry. Everything's compressorized and swatches included. The WC skirt recolors are included in the same rar but labeled as such so it's obvious which ones they are.

Obligatory mention that some things might not be perfect. It's not an excuse but I started a new job last week and have had to flip my sleep schedule on its head so I've been a little out of it lately but I love converting nonetheless. For example the jacket I originally was trying to have it be an accessory (thanks @paluding for trying to help) but it was just not working. My point is please do not hesitate to point out any blips or issues to me to fix 😊

🌼Trillyke Hide & Seek Top, Puresims Cualquiere Denim Jacket, Arethabee Rosa Skirt + WC Recs, BustedPixels Jem Slouchy Boots download on Patreon (FREE)

But please consider becoming a patron if you want to show me support or make requests! ❤️🙏 Any support is extremely appreciated and really helps me out!

Credits of course to all the original ts4 creators, and again to whoever the underwear texture belongs to...wish I knew that 😛

[commanderyes]

The Commander Says Goodbye

I’m not going to lie, I’m extremely anxious as i’m writing this, out of what these news could mean to a lot of people, and my heart feels heavy enough it could drop down my ribcage any minute from now and squish all my other organs. But I’ve been dancing around this topic for a long time now, and I think i’ve finally reached a point where i can’t ignore it anymore, for my own sake.

I hereby announce Commander Yes has come to an end.

As I’ve mentioned plenty of times before, here and to many other people, when I began this comic all the way back in 2018 I was in a really bad, really low place in my life in every sense of the word, and it was a spur-of-the moment decision to cheer myself up, because Path of Fire had just released and my enjoyment of the game had reached fever pitch and I had been playing Guild Wars 2 alone since as far as launch, and none of my other friends had ever really gotten into it. I guess I just, dunno, cried out into the big maelstrom of the community, one voice amidst millions, because i wanted SOMEBODY to look at what i did and revel in the nerdery with me.

And somehow the snowball began to roll and people wanted more and more of what I could do, and I was being actively reached out to, and, well, some time after that I landed my first ever job, I discovered a lot of things about myself, and I found myself in communities that welcomed me with open arms, and many of the people in there have since become among the best friends I could’ve possibly encountered, kindred souls who i’ve shared joys and sorrows for many years and who I can’t imagine living without anymore.

And all the while I kept making the comics, and with every entry posted every week I’d keep having people stopping to comment on them, and whether they were dumb jokes or personal takes on the story, they’d all share how much what I do kept hitting them in the kokoro, and to this day whenever I play anywhere in the game I still get people who recognize me and thank me for doing what I do. It was wonderful, it IS wonderful, and seeing that response motivated me to keep going, because what did still mattered to people, out there.

But I did always say I planned to keep doing these comics until I ran out of energy for them, and I think i’ve finally reached that point.

Because ever since I actually landed that job I’m exhausted and sleep-deprived every other day, so much so that I only have time to work on the comic on saturdays and sundays, and it gets harder and harder to just sit and draw, and at that point it was just more work, and while I still enjoy and play Guild Wars 2 a lot, it no longer consumes my time and attention like I’ve used to and i’ve been having fun with more personal projects, and honestly the direction the story is taking these days does not sit right with me and it’s hard to find inspiration in that, and this might be borderline selfish but every year I find people care less and less about the comics and it really takes a hit to you motivation when hardly anybody responds after you’ve spent a whole weekend trying to squeeze a five-page comic out.

And, well, I have been doing these for six years straight, and I think that’s a good run. I’m tired, and ready to move on, at long last. Let it be someone else’s turn.

But that’s the beautiful thing about this community, isn’t it? Even if I’m hanging up the hat, there are a whole lot of fantastic artists out there, as we speak, still cranking out works of art, deserving of all the attention they can get. And think of all the artists yet to come! For every story that ends, another story is just about to begin!

The world keeps on spinning, one way or another.

I’ll be closing my patreon shortly after this, but the reddit archives and tumblr blog shall remain for people to browse whenever they feel like (or until they both go in flames, i guess, what social media isn’t about to these days)

I still don’t think I ever was that much of a big deal, but all the same, to everyone who’s ever supported me and helped me be the person I am right now, to everyone who’s been there from the beginning, to all the devs of this game that has captured us for nearly a decade now, to all my fellow players and artists out there

Thank you.

See you out there, fellow commanders. Still the stars find their way.

[divineerdrick]

Homestuck: Beyond Canon Upd8 for August 11, 2024

So I've heard we have an upd8 today! And we've got a news post too! Right off the bat, we'll have another chapter "a little later in the month." Guess I'll have to keep my ear to the ground. Not sure there's an extension out there that can determine when the team upd8s a Ren'py game attached to their website.

I haven't been able to support the Patreon for a bit, so I'm unaware of the music previews James mentions. His little spiel makes me worried he might go Grimdark at some point . . .

We've still got another collab in the works, but we don't have the details yet. And yeah, I've been experiencing heat where I live that definitely slowed me down a peg.

On to the upd8!

Holy crap! Year 4!

Even with the realizations she made before, apparently this is still really slow going.

Nanna!

Oh wow! She's literally growing up! Wherever she is, she's physically aging in what is probably real time. Here's a shot from the last blog for comparison.

Her hair and horns are both longer, she's taller in frame, her neck is longer, and her eyes and mouth sit smaller on her face. Somehow though, she's still fitting into her outfit. Wonder if they're letting her alchemize new clothes?

Oh man! We've apparently missed some reconciliation with Eridan, John, and Kanaya! I feel especially robbed about missing out on the Kanaya portion. But we all know who the "HER" is. Though it would be a hilarious fake out if it was Nepeta or Feferi!

Hah! We apparently have both Nannasprites here!

Vriska does not say no to cookies!

We get another callback to Vriska's previous adventures as she remembers talking to John about their relationships with their ancestors. But she apparently doesn't understand how humans can have family ties. At least she seems more curious about it now.

Of course Nanna would have to describe having a child as having "novelty". It's nice to see a little bit more background on this version of Jane.

Vriska just cannot get past the idea why anyone would put up with a baby given the unavoidable accidents.

Nannasprite has apparently seen everything Jane has accomplished and is, at the very least, curious how things might have turned out if she hadn't settled down.

Wow. That had to really suck. Nana never felt loved or even wanted before she settled down. That might have been why finding someone who did love her and want to start a family with her caused her to change all her plans.

This is another attitude that Vriska previously would never have considered. She was always certain she had to be best, had to surpass every expectation, and very much felt she had a destiny to fulfill. The idea that someone would just "give up" on all that and do their own thing is more alien to her than humanity itself.

Wow! Vriska was actually mindful she might have lost her cool and genuinely apologized! She is learning!

And some genuine affection here too.

Wait! That's broken Paradox Space! Is Vriska facing Game Over Terezi?

And these are Vriska's typing quirks! Wait! Does she have to come to terms with Game Over Vriska? AKA (Vriska)? Does she have to reconcile with herself?

Wait! Mindfang? Does she have to come to terms with her relationship with Mindfang? If that's the case, no wonder she's not getting anywhere. Everything else has probably been about figuring out what the other person wants. But Vriska's problem was she was always trying to live up to Mindfang, an extremely poor example and role model. In this case, she almost certainly need to stop caring about what Mindfang might want.

Oh! It's not Mindfang! It's Vriska's idea of her, all wrapped up in her relationship with her lusus. It's basically both of Vriska's parental figures rolled into one.

She definitely needs to not give a shit about what this entity wants! While there is value in understanding who her lusus was and who Mindfang was, there is no value in engaging with them. This is all about Vriska learning how trying to live up to their needs and expectations, instead of living up to her own desires, caused her so much pain and heartache.

Heh! "Momfang."

Wow! They really are wrapped into one!

Also I can't decide if this reminds me more of the Venom symbiote or Conceptual Hair.

It is important that Vriska recognizes that these two entities were formative to her. But I really feel like that's all there is here. Understanding who they were and the impact they had on her life. The next revelation is that this doesn't need to define her.

Momfang's words echo a lot of Vriska's own thoughts and words on death and murder. Whether she, or indeed we, like it or not, Vriska does need to forgiver herself for her past. But not by accepting the violent environment as justification. She needs to understand that while she has extenuating circumstances for what she did, Vriska still did those things. She has to come to terms with that and forgive herself for it.

Vriska has learned from Vrissy! Suffering is not what makes you strong. Just as the muscles of a body builder tend to be weaker, more limited, and even useless compared to those of an athlete, suffering often comes with just as much that weakens you. Strength always has to come from within. Someone's strength who gets there through finding something or someone to be strong for is just as valid as someone who gets there through pursuit of an ambition is just as valid as someone who gets there through hardship is just as valid as, well, any path that gets you there. It's a bitter pill if you're the one who's suffered. But it is the truth.

Even on Alternia, none of this was ever fine. Even by their standards, her childhood was full of abuse and violence.

Man! The team is determined to make Momfang's twisting form as creepy as they can for mostly still images!

I don't know if Beforan Lusus could be like this, or if this quirk was part of Scratch's work. But we clearly see that some Lusus just weren't good guardians, despite coevolution. "But so are some parents!" I hear you cry! That's still different. While it's possible in the vast variety of humanity to be raised by a true monster, most abusive parents are still human. There are paths victims of abuse can take to find comfort or even peace and understanding because of this.

Vriska's "mom" is literally a spider, an animalistic predator. "HUNGRY. KILL. FUCK. EAT. FEED." On earth, even when spiders demonstrate sentience and intelligence, it is from an entirely different evolutionary path. We could not relate to the mind of a spider. And neither can Vriska.

There are many reasons why a parent may become abusive.

Vriska's was abusive because that helped it find prey.

Yep. This is not about what Momfang wants. It's about what Vriska wants. "And wasn't considering it now, to 8e clear." Again. Spider!

Huh! But that doesn't stop Vriska's image of Mindfang from being curious.

Vriska knows part of what's wrong. But as most of us know all too well, knowing what a problem is only the first step in fixing it. All you can do is try to catch yourself when "you're doing it again," while also trying to not make that become something you're constantly on guard about.

"Oh my god. Tavros was right!!!!!!!!!"

As was Nannasprite! You're supposed to learn form each of these "sessions" and use that to help with the next.

Now I'm sure that "h8r" is talking about Terezi.

We've often believed that what we read of Mindfang's journal was tame. Homesmut Mindfang is apparently canon.

No Momfang! No! You do not get to use Mayor callbacks!

"What will you do?"

Vriska knows what she wants. How does she prove it? Killing or being eaten seems like it's just more of the same. This could just be as simple as walking away.

Only way to win is not to play. It was always a false binary. There was always another option, it was just a case of seeing it.

Happy Vriska is best Vriska!

Yep! Just walk away!

Yeah, no! No hug for you!

Can't decide if I like "Gestalt of Rivia" or "Hierarchy of Arachneeds" more!

Let's not stop there though! I feel like we know enough now about how this works to start making some predictions.

So the Cueball suggests Scratch. He also played a great role in Vriska's life and actions. How Vriska needs to grow past him is trickier. Scratch was only ever using her, and I'm pretty sure Vriska knows this. Now she's dealt with Momfang, though, I don't think she'd get hung up on him. He is considerably cannier than Momfang, but this still feels like a misdirect. It could potentially lead to Rose. She's the other Hero of Light after all, and she and Vriska have both Scratch and the Cueball in common. I'm willing to bet Vriska didn't take enough advantage of Rose's presence on the meteor. This might create a scenario where she just has to learn from her fellow Hero.

Then we have a feather. This is probably the hardest to draw any conclusions from. The only character in Homestuck connected to feathers is Dave. Another potential hero to learn from. It's just hard to imagine not having to reconcile with Terezi, and I'm pretty sure she's not the 8ball. But I also can't think of how the feather connects her to . . .

Scales! It's a bit of a reach, but scales and feathers do have a connection. Also, why would Vriska have a feather? Maybe it's a quill that she used in her FLARPing days? Either way, I'm gonna say the feather is Terezi. Mostly because it's what I want.

The 8ball will be (Vriska). Vriska needs to come to terms with her Game Over self. She needs to realize that it not only was she wrong to look down on her, but that (Vriska) was always right to just look for happiness. (Vriska) was always valid and deserves to lose those parenthesis. Even if they are really convenient.

[lingthusiasm]

Lingthusiasm Episode 96: Welcome back aboard the metaphor train!

We're taking you on a journey to new linguistic destinations, so come along for the ride and don't forget to hold on! 

In this episode, your hosts Lauren Gawne and Gretchen McCulloch get enthusiastic about metaphors! It's easy to think of literary comparisons like "my love is like a red, red rose" but metaphors are also far more common and almost unnoticed in regular conversation as well. For example, English speakers often talk about ideas as a journey (the metaphor train) or as if they're visual - clear or murky or heavy or maybe fuzzy, but not as fluffy or feathery or metallic or polka-dotted, but other languages can use different metaphors. We also talk about the process of metaphor design, and how metaphors can help us understand - or misunderstand - abstract concepts like electricity or language learning.

Note that this episode originally aired as Bonus 30: Welcome aboard the metaphor train! We've added a few new things about metaphors and an updated announcements section to the top. We're excited to share one of our favourite bonus episodes from Patreon with a broader audience, while at the same time giving everyone who works on the show a bit of a break.

Click here for a link to this episode in your podcast player of choice or read the transcript here.

Announcements:

In this month’s bonus episode we get Tom Scott's Language Files team together on one call for the first and last time! We talk with host/writer Tom Scott, as well as researcher/writer Molly Ruhl and animator Will Marler, about their roles putting the videos togehter, Gretchen's role in the brainstorming and fact-checking process, and what it's like working on a big, multi-faceted project like the Language Files videos.

Join us on Patreon now to get access to this and 90+ other bonus episodes. You’ll also get access to the Lingthusiasm Discord server where you can chat with other language nerds.

Here are the links mentioned in the episode:

Original 'Welcome aboard the metaphor train!' episode on Patreon

Because Internet

Metaphor - etymology (Wikipedia)

Conceptual metaphors 

Gentner, D. (1983). Flowing waters or teeming crowds: Mental models of electricity. In D. Gentner, & A. L. Stevens (Eds.), Mental Models (pp. 99-129). Hillsdale, New Jersey: Erlbaum. (Gentner and Gentner 1983, 2014 reprint)

German 'wichtig'  

Michael Erard's metaphor for language learning 

FrameWorks Institute 

Malaphors 

Cakewalk 

After recording this episode we researched more about cakewalks, which turned out to have their origin in 19th Century dance events held by African Americans. This article by Nicole Emmanuel goes into more on the history of cakewalk. 

You can listen to this episode via Lingthusiasm.com, Soundcloud, RSS, Apple Podcasts/iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also download an mp3 via the Soundcloud page for offline listening.

To receive an email whenever a new episode drops, sign up for the Lingthusiasm mailing list.

You can help keep Lingthusiasm ad-free, get access to bonus content, and more perks by supporting us on Patreon.

Lingthusiasm is on Bluesky, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Mastodon, and Tumblr. Email us at contact [at] lingthusiasm [dot] com

Gretchen is on Bluesky as @GretchenMcC and blogs at All Things Linguistic.

Lauren is on Bluesky as @superlinguo and blogs at Superlinguo.

Lingthusiasm is created by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. Our senior producer is Claire Gawne, our production editor is Sarah Dopierala, our production assistant is Martha Tsutsui Billins, and our editorial assistant is Jon Kruk. Our music is ‘Ancient City�� by The Triangles.This episode of Lingthusiasm is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike license (CC 4.0 BY-NC-SA).

[jimhines]

2022 Writing Income

It’s that time again – for fifteen years now I’ve been writing an annual blog post about my income as a writer. Money tends to be an uncomfortable, even taboo topic, but I think it’s important to help counter the myths that we’re all multimillionaires living in Glass Onion-style mansions. (Side note: If anyone wants to pay millions of dollars for my book, I’ll happily update this blog post from my private island mansion.)

Remember, every writer’s career is different, and I’m only one data point.

Prior Years: Here are the annual write-ups going back to 2007: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021.

In 2016, instead of a personal income write-up, I did a survey of almost 400 novelists about their income.

My Background: I’m a primarily “traditionally published,” U.S.-based SF/F author with 15 books in print from major New York publishers. The first of those books came out from DAW in 2006. I have an agent, and have been with them since about 2004.

I’ve self-published a middle grade fantasy and a few short collections. I’ve also sold about 50 short stories to different magazines and anthologies.

I’ve never hit the NYT or USA Today bestseller lists.

I’m currently the sole parent of a teenager (at home) and a 22-year-old (at college). I have a day job that’s just over half-time, both for the paycheck and the benefits.

2022 in Summary: There’s no gentle way to say this. The last several years have kind of sucked. Losing my wife to cancer in 2019 completely derailed my writing. I was hoping 2022 would be a comeback year, but life had other plans…

I did write and sell two new short stories and one nonfiction piece, which was nice. I’ve got a finished middle grade book that’s been on submission for a while. I finished a standalone fantasy that’s been sitting with my publisher for a while.

Normally, my editor is pretty quick about responding, but last year wasn’t normal for DAW, either. DAW was acquired by Astra House. A lot of their time and energy went into that deal. I’m hoping for the best, but things still haven’t settled into the new “normal.”

Last year did see the release — finally — of Terminal Peace, the third book in the Janitors of the Post-Apocalypse series. I’m thrilled and relieved to see that book in print, but it came out right in the middle of the Astra House acquisition, which may have impacted things like promotion and publicity.

I also finished the first draft and started revising a new standalone middle grade fantasy with series potential.

2022 Income: The biggest check was the publication payment for Terminal Peace. All total, before taxes and various expenses, the writing brought in $13,957.16. While that’s absolutely nothing to sneer at, and I’m grateful for the success, it’s also a dropoff from the past couple of years. To be blunt, if you look at the cumulative graph, things have been slumping a bit.

Income Breakdown:

Patreon has been a small but steady and helpful source of income. My thanks to everyone for that!

As usual, my U.S. novels are the biggest piece of the pie. The short fiction category is a bit higher this year, thanks to those two new stories. I didn’t self-publish anything new in 2022, but if that middle grade book doesn’t sell, I’d like to publish that one later this year.

Novels (U.S. editions): $8,542.83

Novels (Non-U.S. editions): $473.25

Self-Published: $1158.24

Short fiction: $892.86

Audio: $521.04

Patreon: $1668.94

Other: $700

I mentioned earlier that things have been in a bit of a slump, and I need to focus on breaking out of that. Some things I can’t currently control. Tomorrow I could wake up to an offer from DAW on the book they’ve got, and maybe an email from my agent that the middle grade title he’s been shopping around went to auction and got a six-figure advance. But I can’t make these things happen.

Priority #1 is to keep writing. If I’m not doing that, other goals are pretty much moot.

Priority #2 is to figure out some alternate options. It may be time to put more time and effort into self-publishing as a complement to my traditionally published work.

The biggest thing making me anxious is that I’m pretty much out of contract. The paperback of Terminal Peace comes out this year, but for the first time in about 15 years, I don’t have the security, the luxury, or the deadlines of a signed contract. In some ways, this is freeing: I can write whatever I want. But there’s no guarantee as to when things will see print. Submitting to the traditional publishers is a long, slow process…

From talking to other writers who’ve been doing this a while, I’ve learned that pretty much every career has its ups and downs. Personal, pandemic, and publisher issues have been a bit of a perfect storm for me these past few years, but I’m not going anywhere. After 27 years as a writer, I’m excited to see what comes next.

Wrap Up:

I hope this has been helpful. As always, feel free to share the post and/or ask questions.

[the-colourful-witch]

Hi there I was wondering, when you started doing the Harry Potter character design series that you do in your blog, which characters did you start with and how did you decide what characters to do next and how the art project would develop?

Hiya! What a fun question, I'm glad you asked :)

Start of the Project

It started about a year ago. I was pretty art-blocked after graduating from art school. I was by myself during the summer holiday (or rather, the start of a black void that is creating your own art career, holidays are for students...). I was tired and enjoying some much-needed time off when I doodled this little punk girly on my iPad... She had pink hair and funky outfits and I thought: this is Tonks! So I posted the sketch on Tumblr. I don't even know why. I never posted sketches before, it was just an impulse.

The funny thing is, I posted (HP) stuff on Tumblr before but never really did anything with it. I had done a few Marauders portraits the winter before but that didn't prompt me to do more. It wasn't until I posted Tonks and I got some enthusiastic reactions that I thought to create more. It sparked enthusiasm in me; I wanted to explore more of these outfit sketches for HP characters. This is fun! So I did Hermione next, then Harry, then Ron. And on and on. Soon, I was taking requests and thought; 'People seem to really enjoy this! Who'd have thought my doodles turned into this?!'

After about two months, I decided to illustrate every HP character in the books (minus a few extremely obscure ones.. maybe when I get the motivation..). It will probably take a while, but after one year I've done... (takes a moment to count) 45 of them! There are so many more, so it will take a few years to get through them all, I think. Not to mention, all the other illustrations I do, too. The Triwizard portraits were fun! As well as the Weasley family portrait, the Gryffindor Quidditch team... I have a lot more stuff planned :) So, long story short: I'm going to continue for a long long time because there are too many characters to get through and I can't wait to share them all with you! How do I choose which characters to do next? That depends. Sometimes I take a request because I can't choose myself. And other times, I'm planning a few characters in a row. Like, I started with the Gryffindors in Harry's year. Dean, Seamus, Lavender and Parvati... Then a series of Slytherins, a series of Marauders. A series of Teachers, Triwizard Champions, etc. I recently did a series of every Weasley family member and finished that off with a portrait. The same with the Gryffindor Quidditch team; first all the individual characters and then a group illustration. I like doing it like that, it feels organised :)

Future Plans

As for future plans... I'm so thrilled about my plans. I feel like a child on their birthday :) I started the Owl Post Club last month, through Patreon, where I send my patrons a postcard with a Wizarding World illustration every month. I just sent off the first card and the feeling was unbelievable. I received messages that the cards arrived and they were so happy and I'm just beyond excited. I'm hoping to expand my Patreon with more fun projects like this soon. I would like for people to be able to have physical artwork and I'm working on making that possible. The Owl Post Club is just the beginning. Link to the Owl Post Club:

I hope this answered your question(s) :) I'm happy to answer more if you have any.

Magical wishes, Fleur

[stillness-in-green]

Hi, are you still working on the AFO Retcon Essay? You mentioned a few times you are not sure if Horikoshi retconned AFO's original plan or if he always intended for AFO to take over Tomura, but made AFO act somewhat contradictory from the start regardless. Did this ever make you feel like there are too many possibilities in regards to Horikoshi's original intentions to take into account and could therefore make it harder to write the essay?

Hi there, and thanks for your interest! I did actually talk about this a good while back, towards the beginning of the year; you can find that post here. It says pretty much exactly what you did and goes a bit further--that I'm so distrustful of Horikoshi as a writer that I have no idea anymore what might have been retconned and what was his intention from the start, and further, that even if something was his intention from the start, I don't trust him to have laid the groundwork for those intentions with honesty or good faith.

Instead of the AFO Retcon Essay, what I've been poking at instead is some sort of massive retrospective of all the problems with BNHA's endgame. That's going to require a reread on my part, and some decisions about formatting--namely, do I want to do the reread privately, on my end, and then write the Mega Chonky Essay and post it when I'm finished, or do I do it publically, read-along liveblog style, documenting the problems as I go?

At the moment, I'm leaning towards the second. I have some tentative ideas about keeping a running list of (to use a witticism from the Twitter fen) Themes & Such, ideas and ideology the series sets out and how well it lives up to those ideas--or how it fails to. I'd also like to keep track of things like character arcs and foreshadowing, documenting things with an eye to where those arcs go, what the foreshadowing amounts to, whether the series keeps its implicit promises, and so on. I suspect it would wind up looking something like a cross between the heteromorphobia essay and my chapter thoughts posts.

On the other hand, a format that deals with one group of problems at a time could feel more focused, discussing all the evidence at once of any particular topic rather than having to keep many (many) plates spinning across a retrospective of the entire series. I also already have the broad outline for that, since it was my plan last time I was seriously poking at the idea. It would probably still end up being posted in multiple parts; the parts would just cover different groups of characters or aspects of the series per installment, rather than e.g. each installment covering an arc and everything in it.

I suppose there's nothing stopping me from doing first the former and then the latter? I'm planning to reread the whole series anyway, after all.

In any case, I like that kind of installment-based format not least because I'm also in the early stages of getting a Patreon set up aimed at supporting my meatier chunks of fandom writing and potentially giving people some ability to point me at this or that topic. A multi-part analysis of BNHA--something in a similar style as my documentations of heteromorphobia, the problems with the anime's adaptation of My Villain Academia, or even, to reach back to an older fandom, my episode-by-episode write-ups on Human Debris in Gundam IBO!--strikes me as a good way to get that off the ground.

I've got one or two things to finish getting off my plate before then, and I'd want to wait until the last volume of BNHA officially comes out (12/4) just in case of any thirteenth-hour surprises, but keep an eye out! I'm not inclined to paywall my writing, but maybe an early access sort of model? I'm also going to want to find a blogging site that's more aimed at hosting long-form writing than Tumblr is. We'll see!

In the meantime, to give everyone an example of the kinds of things I'm looking at tracking through the story, one of the things that most vexes me about the ending is how it not only fails to resolve its contradictory ideas of saving and heroism, it feels to even recognize those contradictions. Here's a chunk of my notes on that topic from the outline of The Mega Chonky Essay in its current form.

• Nana says saving isn’t just saving someone’s life, but also making sure they’re smiling in the end. But that means that saving their life is the prerequisite. If Eri died smiling, her smiling would not prevent everyone from recognizing her death as a tragedy.         • “Perfect Victory” is defined as both “winning” and “saving” flawlessly—that is, every fight is won, and no one is left unsaved. This is introduced first as an ideal for Deku and Bakugou to strive for, with both of them needing to work on different parts of the equation, and continues to be an aspect of Bakugou’s characterization, as it comes up again in Joint Training. But it doesn’t stay locked to them, as All Might says directly to the American pilots that they can’t be allowed to die because the kids are aiming for a Perfect Victory.         • A pivotal question for Toga and the larger series is, given that Heroes are supposed to save people, how do Heroes justify killing Villains? Do they not think of Villains as people?         With all three of these ideas in place, the challenge becomes how to navigate the endgame to a place where all three concepts are honored/resolved. The ending must demonstrate that Heroes do see Villains as people while also being able to achieve their desired Perfect Victory—they must win against the Villains while also saving them, where “saving” means that the Villains’ lives are saved and they’re smiling in the end.         Or must they? After the first war, the series introduces another concept of how to save people, albeit one that runs directly counter to Nana's definition of a saved person as someone both alive and smiling: Gran Torino says that killing someone can be a way of saving them. He and Nana can’t both be right, so to confront and resolve that discrepancy, the story will have to acknowledge one of them as wrong. (Spoilers: It does not.)         In the end, Toga dies, and Deku kills Shigaraki, and if both of them die smiling, well, you sure as hell can’t say the same for e.g. Gigantomachia or All For One or Dabi or any of the thousands of unhappy Villains who wound up in prison (many of them likely bound for the gallows!), alive but decidedly not smiling. Heck, All Might, in trying to console Deku, moves the goalposts even more by suggesting that all Deku needed to do to get the credit on “saving” Shigaraki was make sure his inner child wasn’t crying anymore. Not only does he not have to live, he doesn’t even have to be smiling! An absence of obvious grief is enough!         Thus, you wind up in this place where you have an unsolvable problem: somewhere along the line, either someone failed or someone was wrong, and the story, in being unwilling to confront that disharmony, winds up undermining other established themes and goals. Did the kids “lose” because they failed to meet the criteria for the Perfect Victory? Was the definition of “saving” wrong? Was Gran Torino wrong or was Nana? Was the definition of Perfect Victory wrong? Was Toga correct in her fear that Heroes don’t see Villains as people?         No matter what the answer is, it runs afoul of some previously established Theme in the story. Even if the idea is that the ending is downbeat and bittersweet because the kids failed (and the story is using All Might’s goalpost-moving to resolve the dissonant definitions of “saving” in Gran Torino’s favor), that still means yet another theme is violated: that of BNHA being a story of how Deku+his classmates become “the greatest Heroes.” After all, the story also defined “greatest Heroes” for us! The greatest Heroes are those who can achieve Perfect Victory.

Whatever form this essay winds up taking, these are the sorts of concepts I want to discuss in terms of how the series sets them up compared to how it winds up following them through.

Thanks for the ask!

[fobnsfwdoodlesbackup]

Hi y'all, I just wanted to talk a little about the behind the scenes of what I've been up to, to give y'all a little transparency and to open myself up for any tips or input! 🙏 Thank you for your continued support and for taking the time to look at my art 🫶

First and foremost I wanted to give some transparency about my art capacity.

As og followers may remember, I started this blog when I was doing art full time. Eventually my living expenses grew and I had to go back to work. I find myself in a cycle of "I'll make more art soon, once I get a job!" And "I'll make more art soon, once I am done with this job!" I lost my most recent job suddenly, having had an extension waved over my head until the last day(October 7th). Now I'm excited to have more time for art, but I am also feeling a rush to get a new job ASAP as I've been living paycheck to paycheck. I dream of doing this work full time, I'm just scared it's not quite there yet and I worry that I come off as scammy or dishonest when I anticipate more stability around the corner.

Second, I've been struggling with the Patreon. It's taken me a while to come to terms with this, but from what I've seen Patreon is not intuitive at all from the creator end. It doesn't do a good job of organizing addresses, emails, showing who or who isn't subscribed to me, or organizing and displaying the work I put on there. I've been really shocked by this experience, since lots of big names use Patreon. It's been a great way to streamline support, but it's been unhelpful in every other regard. I would like to continue using it, but I will most likely post more wips or process videos there in the future.

Which brings me to my third point, zines. I love making zines so much, it feels personal and fulfilling and fun! However the Patreon issues make it harder to keep information in order about where to send zines, or even where to message folks about them. In addition to this, the post office has been a big barrier to me, oftentimes only being open at the same time as my dayjob. Making zines can take days, then sending them out is a whole other monster.

This work is so important to me. Drawing peoples fantasies, representing body types, creating work around sexuality and the human experience feels like what I'm meant to do. I've made comics since I was a kid. This is the dream to me. The friends I've been able to make through this work are so important to me, and the conversations have been invaluable. Not to mention fun! I wanna doodle, I wanna draw hot stuff, I wanna thirst over these dudes! I want to play!

But I also just want to be transparent about the barriers I'm working around to share that experience. I'm completely self taught, both in art AND in running shops, building websites, running 8 accounts, etc. I take a lot of time to learn the logistics of these things, and try to make them make sense for my relationship with y'all (I do not want to paywall my art!! I don't want to!!!). This year my desktop broke down (the main one I use for all paintings and digital art). I've paused my Etsy shops and my Patreon to try to catch up with things. Trying to learn to paint in a completely different program. Then lost my job with no savings.

At the end of the day I don't want anything to come between me sharing my art with you. I wish I could doodle a thing, take a picture, and post it here. No third party site, no shop, no subscription. Just sharing my art with you. I promise I'm trying to figure out how to stay as close to that as possible, and I want to thank y'all for sticking with me as I untangle all of that.

So, what can you expect in the near future?

I'm working on a couple of painting commissions right now, which you should be able to see in the next couple of days! I want to catch up on kinktober and get those posted as well. There's a comic commission in progress which I'm very eager to work on, and which I think y'all will be excited for! To ease the weight of the Patreon I think I may do less zines/polls there and more wips and process videos! If possible, I want to do more full colored work too.

Thank you again for enjoying my work, and if you have any input or tips my inbox is always open 🙏🫶💕

[popculturebuffet]

Transformers More than Meets the Eye Retrospective Season 1 Part 1

A little over two years ago I started a project i'd wanted to do since I started this blog, a retrospective covering one of my faviorite comics of all time: IDW's Transformers: More than Meets the Eye, and thanks to my patreon Brotoman.EXE who was also a fan, I finally did and up to this point i've covered all of season 1 and season 2 starts today. So to catch you up i'm complaining all my reviews thus far into a couple of posts.. because Tumblr only allows so many links and the first few issues were done one at a time.

This batch contains my review of the first two arcs and stand alone along with the last stand of the wreckers mini that got Roberts and Roche the job and the spotlight issues. In these hallowed pages you have a lot of witty robot banter, ratchet stealing a monsters hands, and a whole lotta death. Fun for the whole family!

[back2bluesidex]

Hard Luck - JJK & KTH (18+) - Chapter 1

◆ Pairing: CEO Jungkook X Fem employee Reader X Legal advisor Taehyung. 

◆ Summary: You have a good face, a nice body, a fat amount saved in your secondary bank account, a stable job that you love, loving friends and family, you are good in bed. You have almost everything other than a good luck in love. Sleeping around with random dudes don’t feel enough when your friends are getting married and having kids. If you are being honest, you have started getting bored of this prolonged singlehood already. 

Your last light of hope fades away when your work crush, aka the hot guy from the legal department, Kim Taehyung (with whom you might or might not have slept once, okay! twice!), asks you to set him up with your work best friend (who, apparently, is the most asked out woman of the company). But what you don’t know is that the CEO of the company has taken a liking to you and has started on a mission of winning your heart. 

But wait… Taehyung might have started developing feelings for you in the process of receiving your help.

◆ Chapter summary: Two meetings - One went good - another went downhill.

◆ Theme: Romance, drama, light angst, my poor attempt of humor, fluff and eventual smut. office romance au,

◆ Warnings: Tiny bit angst.

◆ Word count: 3.2k+

◆ A/N: let me know your thoughts.

Minors aren't allowed in this blog!!!!

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You have a very love-hate relationship with weekends. 

Love because who the hell doesn’t like free times, no rush to drive to work, a quiet time on their couch with some unhealthy snacks and a good movie playing on the TV? 

Hate because weekends make you feel alone. Today is just a copy of yesterday.  

On most Friday nights you end up going drinking with your teammates, save your Saturdays for your friends and your precious Sundays are for yourself and yourself only. 

But lately, your said friends have changed, not by choice but by circumstances. Two of them are married, one is engaged and another just started dating after a prolonged singlehood - leaving you completely out of the order. Now they name most of their Saturdays to their partners, which makes you angry but you know that’s the only normal thing to do. 

So, now you are the one that neither has a partner and nor anyone to spend most of your Saturdays with. 

You sigh as you scroll through netflix. 

There is nothing that catches your eyes, intrigues you enough to start watching. 

Just when you are about to read the description of this new cheesy romcom, your phone vibrates with a call. 

It’s your mom - she calls you ten times a day. 

“Hmmm?” you greet her absent-mindedly. 

“Mia just gave birth to a baby boy!!!” she squeals on the other side of the phone. You can feel her excitement through the vibration of her digitized voice. 

The news lights you up as well. Mia is your favorite cousin and older than you by a year only. 

“Really? Woah! Is the baby fine? Is she fine?” 

“Both of them are fine, ddal.” Your mother, now, replies calmly, “it’s only me who is not.” 

“What? What happened? Joint-pain again?” you sit up on the couch. 

“No. That's not it.” your mother whines. You love to hear her whines. 

“Then?” 

“When will I have my grandchild?” she huffs, making you laugh. 

“Eomma, I’m only 27.” you remind her. 

“That’s why I am reminding you, darling. If you start looking for a man now, you will be able to gift me a grandchild before I hit seventy.”  

The mention of a ‘man’ draws a very particular face on your vision. 

You know you should not think too much, read too much into someone’s actions. But at this age, when you already started feeling alone, feeling the desire for someone to come back home to, you can’t help but to feel the need of holding the next best person who shows you a silver of interest. 

And Taehyung has shown a lot of it. 

You will win in life if you manage to bag someone as nice, hot, handsome and successful as him. 

“Maybe… maybe very soon, eomma.” you add a trail of words to end your thoughts. 

“Omo! Really? Are you seeing someone?” she’s now way too much excited and her excitement makes you want more from the guy who only fucked you twice. 

“No- it’s not that. I am just talking about the possibilities.” your voice sounds frail for some reason. Possibility is what it is. Nothing is confirmed. 

You know you have a crush on Taehyung but at the same time you have no idea if there is more than just lust in his mind.

You try not to think of negative things and engage your mother in off-topic conversations. But in the back of your mind, Taehyung stays still, with his baritone voice and boxy smile. 

“Good morning, sweetheart” Hani, the colleague you are the closest to, chirps in with her sweet voice. 

She is the epitome of perfection. 

The girl looks like a goddess, very friendly, the life of the party, smiles at everyone - doesn’t really matter if she knows them or not, is an amazing cook, and good at the job she does. 

Her amazing persona accompanied by that next level face card, makes her the most desired woman of the company. 

There is hardly any bachelor who hasn’t asked her out yet. And Taehyung is one of them (which makes you think that he must be into you). 

Sometimes you are jealous of her - okay! Scratch that! Most of the time you are jealous of her ability to make friends, to have people wrapped around her fingers without having to do anything while you practically have to beg your own friends to spend their weekends with you. 

And being asked out? That’s a completely different story. 

What you have understood from your experience is that guys love to have you on their bed. You are a good fuck, you know that. But a wife material? No. 

You are way too aloof, emotionally unattached to entertain anyone more than normal boundaries allow you to. Hence, you end up pushing people away.  

And now - at an age where you should be in a long term relationship - you are alone. 

“Good morning, Hani.” you reply with a genuine smile gracing your lips. Honestly, very few people can pull a genuine smile out of you and Hani is certainly one of them. 

Had it been anyone else as popular as her, they would have a big fat ego. But Hani is different and that’s why you love her. 

“How was the weekend?” she asks, placing her order for her usual iced americano. You still don’t understand how people consume this as the first thing in the morning. It’s nothing but cold and bitter.  

You grab your iced vanilla latte and take a mouth full of the sweetness, “as usual. Boring. Only me and my couch and netflix” 

“Oh? You could have called me in. I was mostly alone too.” she sips her aa-aa, and makes a delightful face. You scrunch your nose at that. 

“Really? I thought you do those volunteering stuff on weekends?” you two walk towards the elevator while sipping on your beverages. 

“That’s for day-time. I am usually free during the nights. So, try calling me if you need a companion.” she eyes you expectantly. 

You know she feels alone too, just like you. 

Hani came out of her two year long relationship just a few months ago. She probably feels alone during her free time as her partner is not there to entertain her anymore. 

And maybe it’s a good idea. 

Even though you don’t like to extend your professional relationships beyond the gates of your workplace - Hani can be different. 

You can take this friendship a little further, you guess. 

The elevator door slides open, revealing a certain someone you look for a lot these days. 

Taehyung smiles brightly at you. Two strands of his dark hair fall on his forehead, his siren eyes are full of mirth as they quickly dip down to check you out. But then his eyes fall on Hani. And if you are not wrong then they have a brief eye-contact before someone behind asks you and your friend to get inside and make space already. 

An odd feeling blooms inside your chest. 

Taehyung checked you out, that’s for sure. But what were those love eyes that he regarded Hani with? Did he just fall in love at first sight or something of that sort? 

You settle inside the dingy space of the elevator rather uncomfortably - both physically and metaphorically. 

Hani is standing in front of you and Taehyung is just behind your back. You are sandwiched between the two of them and weirdly enough - you don’t feel too good about the situation. Because you can see Taehyung staring at Hani through the glazed metal door or the elevator. Something churns inside of you at the thought of Taehyung being smitten by your work best friend. 

But maybe you are thinking too much? Maybe time will soon prove you wrong. 

Wrong. Everything is wrong. 

Your teammates do an impressive job everyday except for the days when there is an important meeting and you need documented reports. 

Today is one of those days. And today is even more horrifying because this will be your very first meeting with the new CEO who took over less than a month ago. 

Streets say he is as strict as his father if not more. That’s basically all you know about Jeon Jungkook. You don’t know what he looks like or what he sounds like. And that makes you anxious. 

The prospect of having an one-on-one meeting with the new, young CEO has been freaking you out already and now your subordinate had to do a sloppy reporting job.  

“Oh lord! Sooho! Why did you write ‘no penetration this month’ when the chart is at its peak?” You don’t like to scream at all but the migraine that is climbing up through the path of your neck mixes with your frustration and turns your sentence a little more high pitched than what you usually use. 

“Oh?” your teammate blinks at you being dumbfounded, “is that called penetration?” 

“Yes of course? What did you think? We are asking about your sex life in the reports?” you can’t help but mock the boy. 

Laughter echoes through your workspace but it quickly dies down when you glare at your teammates. They mumble apologies but you pretend not to hear any of it. 

“Sorry, seonbae. I will fix it right away.” he runs towards his cubicle. 

“You have five minutes.” you issue a warning. Taking your phone in your hands, you find a text sitting on your screen. 

Taetae: Any plans tonight?

Your chest heaves with the long breath that you inhale upon reading the text. See… Taehyung still wants to see you! It’s you he wants to see! And you went on an overdrive thinking he might ditch you now and start chasing Hani like the other men of the office. 

Your nails clink against your phone screen as you type your reply. 

You: nope. 

You don’t even get the chance of putting down your phone because his reply comes right away. 

Taetae: Then let's get a coffee after work. I will wait at the lounge. 

You: Sounds cool. 

You don’t know what you feel about this one-on-one meeting situation. 

The previous CEO, Mr. Jeon Jae Gyeong, had meetings with all of the department heads at once and got done with it. 

But the younger Mr. Jeon has sent out emails to everyone stating very clearly that he would be changing the meeting format. 

So, now you are here. Waiting outside his massive office (that could fit your entire workspace and still leave space for a snack pantry), on the verge of an anxiety attack. 

The more you wait, the more restless you feel. Your heels start tapping against the floor creating a rapid sound. The CEO’s assistant, a beautiful guy with blonde hair and soft features, looks at you with an assuring smile - as if to tell you that ‘it’s okay. Don’t get your nerves worked up.’ 

you smile back at him feeling a tiny bit better. 

Just then the huge door of the CEO’s office slides open. The head of the finance team walks out and from the look on his face you can tell that his meeting didn’t go too well. 

Your throat dries at the assumption of what you might face when you go inside. 

You are not going to get fired, right? Right?!

Mr. Bae, the finance head, walks out in haste heightening your anxiety even more. 

Just then the assistant receives a call on his line and murmurs something. He looks at you and says, “you may go inside now.” 

Your legs almost give out. You start planning to go home and update your resume to look for opportunities.  

Taking a long breath, you push the door open. 

Your eyes fall on the prominent figure that is sitting on the large mahogany table. His eyes are focused on the ipad. Mouth shut tight, lips pursed, his downturned face is casted with a shadow, which prevents you from taking a good look at his face. 

What you see is the silver ring that glints on his eyebrow. And are those tattoos on his hand? 

Even if he heard you coming in he clearly didn’t plan on providing you with any of his attention. 

“May I come in, Mr. Jeon?” you curse at the way there is zero confidence in your voice. 

He then looks up at you and locks his eyes with yours. 

Holy shit! He is handsome! 

Your chest heaves with another long breath. 

You wait for him to call you inside but he just sits still staring at you with big doe eyes. His gaze is piercing, intimidating and makes you weak on your knees. 

His Adam's apple bobs as he gulps once before clearing his throat, “Miss Y/N. Please come in.” 

You take careful steps towards his desk praying that you don’t trip and embarrass yourself. He ushers his hand towards the chair, asking you to take a seat voicelessly. 

You do as he asks. 

“How are you doing, Miss Y/N?” Jeon Jungkook asks without diverting his piercing gaze from yours. 

He is looking at you so intently as if he has known you for a long time. 

You give him an easy smile, “I’m doing fine, Mr.Jeon. What about you?” you return his courtesy. 

“Doing great.” Jeon Jungkook gives you a very pretty, heart fluttering kind of smile. 

If your heart really flutters a little  - you are not going to dwell upon it. 

“So, let’s talk about work.” he hums as he dives into his laptop and probably opens the reports you have mailed him earlier. 

Taking a minute to check all the reports, he opens his mouth to speak, “pretty impressive. I have gone through the reports from previous months as well and as I am seeing this month's reports - you have been bringing great results. Online traffic is at an all-time high, ad-clicks have gone past the five million mark, there are an average of 20 real-time users and at least 5 of them are from the states. Great. I must say” he pauses to look at you, “I am very impressed.” The last part of his sentence comes out breezy, a little bit suggestive as if his words are not only about your work. 

Your stomach feels light. 

“Thank you sir.” that’s all you manage to reply. Absent-mindedly you take your lower-lip in between your teeth and nip on it. 

The action catches Jungkook’s eyes. 

“Are you nervous?” he places a very unexpected question, catching you off-guard. 

“Ah- yeah. I mean, It’s my very first encounter with you as the CEO, so I could not help being a bit anxious. Apologies if my actions have disappointed you in any way.” you straighten your back and speak confidently this time. 

He doesn’t seem rude at all. You allow yourself to feel at ease. 

“Don’t worry about that. I get you. But be assured I am not going to eat you up.” he giggles. His giggle makes you break into a smile as well. 

“That’s all for the day. Looking forward to working with you…” Jungkook extends his hand towards you. You wrap your smaller one around his palm and he mutters, “...closely.”  

When you look into his eyes, you see mischief. 

“Sure.” you reply, sucking in all the air you could. 

By the time you come out of his room, your heart is thumping inside your ears. 

What the fuck was that? How is he so handsome? And what were those eyes he looked at you with? Why did he murmur ‘closely’ like that? 

No! You are overthinking again! You scold yourself. 

The assistant gives you another smile as you bow at him a little and walk away. You find Hani waiting to be called inside. 

When she sees you, she approaches you with a nervous grin, “how is the new CEO?” she whisper-yells. 

“Very nice and handsome.” you whisper back. She makes an “O” with her mouth before she gets called inside. 

You check your lips once more in the mirror. 

Being too focused on perfecting your lip liner, you don’t see Hani coming inside the washroom. You only become attentive of her presence when she smacks your ass. 

“Ouch!” a painful groan leaves your lips, “don’t do this! People might think we are dating!” 

“I’d have totally dated you if I wasn’t straight.” Hani chuckles standing beside you, “what’s the occasion tho? Have a date or something?” 

“Nope. Gonna meet Taehyung for a quick coffee.” 

Hani’s eyes wide at that, “Taehyung? As in Kim Taehyung from the legal team?” 

“Yup.” 

“Ohh hooo” she sings “I didn’t know you guys have coffees with each other, huh?” 

“It’s not what you think, Hani.” you look at her, raising a brow. 

“Oh? Really? But I think he is a good guy. He even greeted me when we met during lunch and I’m sure he didn’t even know me before this morning.” 

Huh? Taehyung greeted Hani? That’s weird. Because he hardly ever smiles at people he doesn’t know properly. 

You don’t let your expression give away your thoughts when you murmur a little ‘yeah’ to your friend. 

Teahyung looks like a painting - or better - a sculpture as he sits there facing the huge window of the lounge. 

He is devastatingly handsome. A smile creeps up to your lips without you realizing so. 

This time you walk confidently, marching towards him as if you own it all. The sound of your heels against the floor makes him face you and look up at you.

“Hey” he greets you as you sit down across from him. 

“Hi” you greet back, waving your hand to a waiter. 

“How was the day?” Taehyung asks, once you are done placing your order. 

“Nerve-wracking. I almost fainted before the one-on-one meeting.” you recall the incidents, then the man. 

Jeon Jungkook’s handsome face flashes before your eyes for a second. 

Taehyung chuckles at your answer, “I know. Jungkook can be really intimidating.” 

You pout, “oh? You’re talking as if you know him personally?” 

“Actually yes. We are not at all close and probably talked a few times but we share the same group of friends.” 

Your eyebrows shoot towards your hairline at the information, “Really? That’s great. It would have been easy for you to face him then.” 

“Oh god! Not at all! He had me pinned at my seat for the entire meeting. All serious expressions and no smile.” Taehyung grimaces at the memory. 

“He smiled at me though. Actually… giggled. He was super nice.” you start recalling the encounter again. 

“He must have really liked you.” Taehyung muses. 

Is he jealous? You ask yourself. Even though Teahyung sounds anything but envious. 

“By the way, Y/N. I asked you to meet today for a selfish reason.” he smiles sheepishly. 

“What is it?” you ask sipping your coffee that just arrived. 

“Are you close to Hani?” 

As soon as the words leave Taehyung's lips, your world stops moving. You know what is about to come and it breaks your heart but you are determined not to show it on your face. 

“Yeah. why?” you manage to voice upon gulping the lump that formed in your throat. 

All of a sudden Taehyung lunches forward grasping your hands with his big ones, “help me please. Set me up with her! Pleaaaaseeeee” his boxy smile is on full view. 

Once that smile warmed you up but right now you feel nothing but cold. 

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[oneknightstand-if]

So I fall behind on this blog and all of a sudden there's a Cassandra and confirmation of Gwen, Percy and a couple other ROs? I even thought there was a new chapter ot but alas, not the case T_T

Guess I have some blog catching up to do!

The non-Chapter 1 ROs have been appearing in the side stories (not to mention the Asks), which is probably why they're appearing in fanart now.

The next big update to Chapter 2-2 should be coming out on my Patreon within a few days now and then the Open Beta will be available a month or so later.

Otherwise, the last big update added the fencing club route to Chapter 1. And the first part of Chapter 2 (Camelot dream sequence) has been available for awhile now.

[here-fm-replacement]

Ok so

There are some things I've got to talk about regarding myself and the project

first and foremost: I'm saying it again, I CURRENTLY WORK ALONE! I'm also still a student and in the process of moving house. So it will take a very long time for me to finish the site and rack up the money to get it online with a domain. I might consider setting up a Kofi or patreon or something later on in the project.

second: I'm new at this! I'm learning coding VERY slowly, because it's hard for me to intake information (blame my autism and adhd.) I'm trying, but it's gonna take a while and a lot of help from my dad.

Finally: I'm gonna be putting the project on hold for a while. Like I mentioned, I'm moving and having some problems with getting into a new school on the last term of the year. Until everything has calmed down in my life, I'll only be working on my games. You can see my studio's blog here!

Y'all are amazing and I <3 you so I'm going to do what I can to keep learning and building!

[sancta-seraphina]

Can yo u talk about some of the changes please? Just curious! but only if their not too spoilery

Hi anon,

I want to start this by saying I really did love the old 2019 version of Holiest. I think it's better now, but I loved that original version.

Actually, the longevity of the project is something a lot of people might not know about, so I wouldn't mind commenting on that, but after I answer the question.

About the chapters themselves:

One of the immediate changes for previous readers is that the entirety of the first chapter has been rewritten. It is much longer.

Chapters 2 through 5 have been reworked to accommodate for the removal of some characters (a separate topic).

Chapters 6, 7, and 8... I decided I didn't like, so those have been rewritten too. The content itself stayed the same. I just didn't like the writing, I felt it no longer reflected my writing style. I kept some things where I could suffer them, though. They also have some sparkly new scenes, which I will talk about below.

Chapter 9 is currently planned to be the same, however, I may just decide that I hate it. In which case, it will suffer the same fate as 6, 7, and 8 (same content, just rewritten).

As mentioned, a huge change was the removal of some of the characters who were, in my opinion, complicating and distracting from the story. This also included reducing the number of POVs (some scenes were simply rewritten to be from a different POV). Currently we have Lucifer as the main POV of the story for obvious reasons, with other scenes from the POV of Beelzebub, Jehoel, and newly, Metatron. The only thing that upsets me about this is that those characters who were removed were female, and my cast does not satisfy me in terms of having a lot of female characters.

Metatron is another significant change. Previously, he was only in three (3) scenes in the entire story, because I didn't actually need him until the last chapters despite him being so important (unlike The Harrowing, where he has a prominent role, Lord save us). But Metatron became really popular on my instagram, so I decided to work in more scenes with him and also to write from his POV [which you can get a preview of in today's excerpt].

The plot? Is the same. The worldbuilding? Also the same.

The map? I'm ignoring it (by which I mean procrastinating), BUT I've also made additional maps for the novel that can be previewed on my [patreon]. The illustrations? Uh, are not going to be the same and I'm kicking myself for it.

The method of publication? Totally different, it's no longer free—it's going to be a physical book now.

Anyways I hope that answered your question without spoiling too much.

The other thing that I wanted to discuss is the longevity of the project.

Although I'm putting a lot of pressure on myself right now to get the novel back out there, Holiest is nothing new, both to my long-term followers (hello to anyone who knew me in grad school or earlier, and also to all those who re-followed me upon changing blogs), and also to my life in general. It didn't have a name until 2016 or 2017 (I forget which), but my main character, yes I'm talking about Lucifer, literally dates back to 2007 and I still have my first drawing of him with that timestamp. Maybe I'll be brave enough to share it one day.

And the story has always had the same themes, even from its beginning days in '07, '08, and '09: with a heavy emphasis on mental illness/psychosis (of the devil in particular), angels in Hell, and Revelation-inspired visions/hallucinations.

As mentioned, the novel itself was completed in 2018 (I did not write during college/grad school due to lack of time, and I graduated in 2015. I do have endless artworks of the characters from throughout my time in college) and I began publishing in August of 2019. Also my patreon itself dates back to 2017.

But I like to take my time when creating, don't outsource my illustrations to others (please understand how much time art takes), and I am a company dancer in a ballet. So yes, it has been over five years now since first putting it online.

Anyways, although it's been updated, it is not changing in terms of what it is, it has been here for a VERY long time (which others can attest to), and it is also NOT going away.

[divineerdrick]

Homestuck: Beyond Canon Upd8 for November 11, 2024

*flops*

Don't mind me.

Just gonna lie here while I do the Homestuck liveblog thing.

I am going to give a heads up. If my next migraine treatment brings me a bit more back in line, I'll be doing VLogs again. I have a bigger video project planned, but it's not Homestuck related. I'll be posting the updates here though, so you'll still know when I blog an upd8. Then you'll all get to see my haggard and aged face.

We begin with the monthly news upd8 from James. Except no! It is in fact an upd8 from Miles! James fades into the background, and apparently Miles will be our flattering correspondent from now on.

It looks like Miles is putting potential spoilers in the news post, so I might have to be careful in the future. Of course these might be jokes. We'll have to see.

Work continues on the planned [S] page and more Beyond Canon merch. We won't be getting an upd8 for December, but they will be running the Patreon. The next upd8 looks like it might be as late as February.

That's all unfortunate. But I fully support if the team wants to take a well earned holiday.

Upd8

Tavvy has decided to join Yiffy on an adventure. This can't possibly end well. His attempts at being her lackey have so far landed him mostly in trouble. And there's a heap of trouble brewing on the soon to be battlefield.

Yeah that's not happening.

Heh! Harry brought the trail mix.

Oh wow. And oh no!

OH NO!!!

That can't possibly count as Heroic though. Getting sniped while performing a purely tactical role is not a hero's end. Still, Rose is probably glad the kids aren't seeing that.

And button.

Interesting view to cut to.

Again, I don't think this will count as Heroic for anyone. But a lot of people are about to die. And let's not forget, none of the trolls currently outside for the Plot Point are God Tiers. This is bad. This is really bad. This is the kind of moment that calls for an extreme, deus ex machina, like the Plot Point has the potential for.

But we're not getting to see it yet.

Edit: @vriedi reminded me that Meenah is a God Tier. Though this does make me wonder, what happens when a dead God Tier dies?

Orange curtains.

Okay! Legitimately fantastic Psyche Out. They actually got me pretty good there.

Okay, we have a new troll it I think.

gavageCunctation is messaging Vrissy. Though that doesn't necessarily tell us much, except that a new player may have entered the drama.

And they're "negging" Vrissy. So this troll clearly sees themselves as a "player" too.

We've got a "game" that's about to be played. A game being run by a TC. Now Gamzee is dead, but that doesn't mean he didn't setup something before Vriska killed him. Still, it's likely these are two completely new troll kids.

We've got a new AA too. So we might be seeing more troll descendants. After all, they used cloning to kick things off. This troll is typing in purple, but blood typing may not be universal anymore. I do find it interesting that we're continuing the nucleotide pairs though. They could have gone for a different motif. Maybe they're trying to symbolize that these are potential paradox clones for a new session?

AA is apparently our chronic auspistice for this group. And potentially our Seer, though we've had fake-outs on that before.

And our actual cliffhanger ending is this new GC's computer exploding.

So yeah. Something has to happen for a lot of our beloved characters to not bite it. I'm also curious how Rose's vision of future events can come true if Jane has unleashed her weapon. But I mentioned last time that Rose is playing a dangerous game here. I don't think any of our God Tiers are in trouble, and I'm pretty sure the Plot Point is fine.

I'm wondering if this is how Calliope ends up sacrificing themself, if Rose was even correct there. Either way, this a dark ending for the year on a community that's already seen some dark endings.

*Returns to flop*