#i'm still coding but i'll ? hopefully be here later ?

[yanderambling]

omg i’m thrilled that y’all like him so much!!! and these ideas were soso tasty ugh your minds~ i had a lot of fun with this, maybe too much if you look at the wc lol, so i hope y’all enjoy <3 ALSO continuity note: since Adrian is so popular, i won't carry major events through different stories unless requested, that way everyone can have their own version of his story! but i'll be keeping general facts about Adrian the same unless otherwise specified, like his parents being rich because i find it funny~ thank you and goodnight <3 (and yes i switched this gif with the last part shhhh it’s okay)

pairing: Masochist Puppyboy!Yandere(m) x Bully!Reader(gn)

words: ~ 4.6k

you can read the previous part here!

CW: 18+, NSFW, yandere behavior, stalking, bullying, physical/verbal abuse, BDSM themes, poor BDSM etiquette but neither party minds

Adrian nearly choked when he heard his name read next to yours for the school project.

It took you a second to recognize his; you mostly just call him mutt. Once you realized, you loudly groaned at the prospect of spending the week with that pest.

Adrian couldn’t hear it over his racing heart.

As soon as class lets out, he's right at your side, yammering on about project materials and meeting arrangements and times and "we should really meet at one of our houses so we don't have to worry about distractions, I'm fine with coming to yours! It's closer to school anyway, right? It'll be more private- I just think it makes sense-"

You finally shut him up by making the executive decision that you’ll work at his house (you don’t need him shedding on your furniture, or potentially getting any personal ammunition against you; he is way too interested in being inside your home, and how does he know it’s closer to school?).

Adrian was crestfallen that he wouldn’t get to go in your house (and smell the pure you imbued in your furniture, and pretend he’s really your dog while you sit together- maybe in your bedroom!-, and snoop through your underwear drawer when you go to the bathroom, and snoop through your bathroom when he goes in right after you...), but he was still over the moon at the idea of having you in his space.

(He’ll just visit your window later tonight like usual, anyway- he'll still get high off that closeness alone. Win/win!)

Adrian doesn't think about anything else for the rest of the day, zoning through his classes and plastered to your side whenever he gets the chance, just alight with energy and anticipation and not shutting up about it- he's lucky there's too many witnesses for you to knock him quiet (oh, but he would feel so much luckier if you did).

You would totally bail on this project if you weren’t already failing this class, which is mostly on account of you bailing. You’re wondering if all those cut classes were worth having to work with this, but you’re not feeling hopeful.

The day seems to drag on forever for both of you, for vastly different reasons. By the time school lets out, Adrian is buzzing out of his skin and you're seconds away from ripping it off him.

As you two start the trek to his place, Adrian can't get over how surreal it feels to walk beside you. It's like you two are a couple, and you're walking him home for an after school study date!

He gets lost in the daydream easily, giving you a brief reprieve from his energy, and allowing you to absently notice his rapidly wagging tail almost propelling him down the sidewalk. You can't help but smirk a little at the image that conjures in your mind.

He's truly ridiculous, you can't really believe him sometimes. Doesn't that thing ever get tired? What does he think is gonna happen that's got him so damn excited? That he's gonna get in good with you somehow (hopefully) and you'll leave him alone? (never in his wildest dreams.)

Yeah, fat chance.

When Adrian stops at his house, you think he's joking. But then he walks right up the driveway of this random McMansion, motioning you along eagerly, and enters a security code before holding the door open for you with a clearly anticipatory smile.

...The fuck.

You did not count on Adrian’s family being loaded. He certainly doesn't dress or groom like it.

You consider berating him for not mentioning it, but decide against it for the risk of seeming stupid- to Adrian of all people. You do make a mental note for your future errand requests, though.

Adrian’s parents aren’t home, he tells you his mom is always traveling and his dad basically lives at his office. You’re relieved that you won’t have to put on a nice face for the folks, but there’s apparently still a live-in housekeeper that floats around (are you fucking kidding?) so you stay diligent.

Adrian suggests you two work in his room; you figure the further from watchful eyes, the better.

Despite it being his idea, Adrian can't help his giddy nervousness as you enter his room (he’d texted the housekeeper to make sure it was clean as soon as you decided to come over, lucky he keeps his souvenirs hidden away whenever he’s not admiring them).

The room is frankly ridiculous, easily twice the size of yours, a king bed in the corner, a desk and coffee table and two dressers, and yet adorned with piles of clothes and clutter and more genres of nerdy shit than you even knew existed.

"Yeah, okay, parts of this make sense."

Adrian cocks his head, opening his mouth to ask what you mean, when he suddenly chokes on air.

You've made a bee-line right to his desk, covered in books and papers for hobbies and school alike, but also holding a locked drawer at the very bottom in which he keeps his "school collection" (just discarded pencils with bitten erasers, torn up notebook paper he can still smell your hands on, old gym shorts you were probably gonna replace soon anyway, a bandaid here, a plastic fork there; nothing crazy).

He watches with bated breath as you sift through the contents of his desk, occasionally scoffing or chuckling at what you find. He lets out a sigh when you seem to grow bored, just for you to move on to his dresser and have his stomach doing somersaults all over again.

Maybe he should've asked the housekeeper to hide his stuff better and just braved the questions later...

You move throughout the room like you own it (you do, as far as the both of you are concerned), making little jabs at his various posters and figurines which make his whole body flush hot with pleasure because you're noticing things about him, but every other move you make sends his heart jumping into his throat in a completely different way.

It only takes a minute or two for the stress to get to him.

“Ah- hey! Uh, maybe we should- maybe we should start on the project, right?”

You bark a laugh and spin on your heel to face him, an incredulous half-grin pulling your lips and revealing a gut-twisting flash of teeth.

"We?"

Oh, yeah, he much prefers those intense eyes boring into him.

He starts spluttering placations immediately. "No! Well, uhm, I didn't mean- you, you don't- have to- obviously, I mean, I don't- I wouldn't-"

You roll your eyes and shove past him, effectively cutting him off as you flop down onto his abominably soft mattress. "Right, yeah, whatever. Let's get one thing straight here, okay?"

Adrian nods, his whole being drawn to focus at your entrancingly commanding tone. Although, it's incredibly hard to focus on anything with the sight of you on his bed right in front of him; he's already planning how to avoid that area so it'll retain your scent longer, he wonders if he could cut that part of the duvet out and keep it in an airtight container, maybe the sheets under it too just to be safe...

"This is not a "we" situation, got it? I'm not lifting a damn finger for this bullshit, that's what you're there for." Adrian has a purpose to you! "I am only here to make sure you're actually doing it, which shouldn't be a problem because if we get anything less than an A, it's gonna be your ass."

As tempting as it is to see what punishment you would inflict upon him, Adrian really really really wants to please you- and he's pretty good at this subject anyway!

You then cross your arms and lean back just enough to look down your nose at him. "Got it?"

Adrian can't answer fast enough.

"Yes! Yes, that's perfect! Awesome, good- great!"

But then he doesn’t make a move. Ha.

He looks a little lost, standing in the middle of his own room, barely biting down a grin and wringing his hands as he seems to wait for another command.

Apparently, you’ve trained him well.

You scoff and let yourself fall onto your back as you pull out your phone (Adrian's gonna need a bigger airtight container).

"Well, go on then, we don't have all day."

Adrian scrambles to get to work. He quickly positions himself on the floor by the foot of the bed and pulls the coffee table closer, emptying his school bag carelessly onto the carpet.

You huff a laugh at the sight, all this money and the kid's parents couldn't buy him any class. Maybe sloppiness is an inherent trait, like his apparent passion for service- nobody with this much money should be such a pushover. And yet...

Adrian couldn’t be happier, sitting on the floor while you lounge across his bed and periodically weigh in with (mostly incorrect) corrections or snide remarks, an almost alarmingly wide grin settled on his face as his tail taps a steady rhythm against his carpet.

It’s not an unpleasant picture, you muse absently as you look up from your phone, it’s almost comforting to have your little puppy on the floor, cheerily working away for you while you laze about. It certainly beats doing the work yourself, or having to threaten a student with an actual spine to do it for you.

Still, it doesn't take long for you to get bored. Bored enough to notice your empty stomach, at least.

"I'm hungry."

Adrian's head shoots up from the book he was hunched over, ears raised at attention and eyes glittering with something you're not sure you care to identify.

He's on his feet in the next second, knocking his knees on the way up loud enough to startle you yet showing no signs of even noticing.

"I-I'll ask Len to make something!"

He darts out of the room before you can tell him what you want, but you trust he knows your moods and tastes well enough by this point to predict. (Oh, he does, and Len's not going to be making anything- they don't know all the special ingredients!)

The second he leaves, you decide to really cure your boredom by snooping around in earnest. Certainly this creep has something actually weird hidden in here, you just have to look in the right places.

You waste no time in sifting through his bookshelf (nerd shit), closet (nerd clothes, some dirty), a dresser (nerd clothes, mostly clean), under his bed (dirty clothes, nerd shit in boxes)- the door opens behind you.

“Wha-? Oh! Ah- Wh-what- what are you doing?”

You don’t even bother moving from your crouch, most of your upper body shoved under the bedstand while the rest of you... is not.

Adrian’s mouth is completely dry for several reasons.

“What’re you, blind? I’m snooping.”

Adrian slowly comes further into the room, hesitantly setting the serving tray on the low table. He can’t stop his voice from cracking as he stutters out,

“Uh- yeah, okay, yeah, but- um, would you maybe mind- um, not?”

You snicker, at least he has some manners. “Yeah, I do mind, actually. What’s the matter, mutt? Got something to hide?”

“N-no!”

The answer is so immediate, so fervent, that it has you pulling up just to give him an unimpressed look. He stares back at you, eyes wide and frenzied.

“Jesus you’re a bad liar.”

Looking at him now, you can see sweat glistening on his face and his hands clenching by his side. His eyes dart toward the dresser you haven't checked yet.

Bingo.

You jump up from your position and stride across the room with purpose. You only make it a few steps before Adrian seems to materialize in front of you, making you stop short and almost yelp from shock.

“S-sorry! I’m sorry, I just-" he's waving his hands wildly, head ducked as his gaze rapidly flicks between your face and the floor, "You-you can’t- please, please don’t-”

“Okay, creep, I get the gist.”

You shove past him, and he wishes he could relish the firm pressure of your hands on him.

He whirls around and watches in horror as you approach the dresser. He needs to do something, he needs to stop you, but what can he do? You’ve clearly made up your mind, it’s not like it's his place to try and change it...

All he can do is watch, a high ringing in his ears and his body filling with static, while you meticulously sift through every drawer until his clothes are strewn about the floor and you're panting with frustration.

He's about to let himself take a breath when you suddenly squat down and stick your arm into the shallow space underneath. He nearly swallows his tongue when you let out a disbelieving huff and awkwardly slide out a long lockbox.

You look up at him triumphantly, eyes sparkling with glee, and he almost mirrors your smile just for how captivating it is.

"Open it."

"N-no-"

You lean up toward him and cock your head, he has to stop himself from being drawn in by the magnetism of your narrowed eyes. “The fuck did you just say to me?"

"I'm sorry! I didn't- just, I can't-"

"Oh, I think you can. Or you're not gonna like what happens next."

That's where you're wrong, and it only really strengthens Adrian's extremely shaky resolve. He tries to keep the grin off his face as he habitually starts to picture the punishment you might give him; a cuff on the ears, a knee to the stomach, a punch in the face-

But you just roll your eyes and groan, no longer in the mood now that something more interesting has presented itself.

Instead, your gaze floats down to the flimsy looking combination lock on the box, then it fixes on some heavy-standed figurine you'd knocked off his bookshelf earlier.

Yeah, good enough.

Adrian barely has time to flinch before you're snatching it up and breaking the lock with a sound crack.

Then you're lifting the lid.

"No!"

He starts to lunge forward, but your sharply raised hand halts him dead in his tracks.

Fuck.

It's too late anyway, judging by your wide eyes and slightly slack jaw (god how he wishes he could focus on the glorious curve of your open lips, or the way your perfect teeth peek over them, or how it might feel to have those teeth sunk into his skin-)

"What. The. Fuck."

"I-I can explain- It's not-!"

"I literally do not believe that you can."

Adrian's throat goes dry, he feels tears welling in his eyes. "I'm sorry- I'm sorry! I never meant- it's not like-"

You tune Adrian out as you focus on the stacks and stacks of photos arranged in the box before you. There even seem to be books underneath those, thick ones despite the shallowness of the container. You’d say there’s easily hundreds of pictures in here.

But, more concerning than the amount of photos… is their content.

They’re all you.

Undeniable, from every angle and range and setting you could imagine, it’s all you. There’s you at your spot with your friends, sitting in class, in the cafeteria, running errands in town, sneaking off to that private spot nobody else is supposed to know about, asleep in your bed- in dozens and dozens of iterations, like you could probably make a flip book of every scene.

It’s offensively redundant, honestly, a gross waste of paper. Maybe equally as concerning.

(Adrian needs to keep physical copies, and hard drives, and backup hard drives, and another box further under the dresser... What if something happens to his phone? What if he lost all his treasured photos forever? He doesn’t know what he’d do.)

"You're a bigger creep than I gave you credit for." You murmur, mostly to yourself.

Adrian never thought he'd feel anything but sheer joy from hearing that word leave your mouth. "N-no! It's not- it's not like that! I'm not- I don't-"

While Adrian's still blustering and working himself into a tizzy, you're just... processing.

It's oddly unsurprising, once you consider all the other factors together. Looking at it now, of course Adrian had more perverted reasons for complying to your cruelty, what else could he have been getting out of it? You guess you kinda always knew, on some level, but you never thought it would be like this.

But, since it is, you can't help but wonder just how far this perversion has gone, how far it will go...

This night has been boring enough that you're entitled to a little fun, right?

And besides, looking at him now- all wide eyed and droopy eared, his tail pulled between his legs and clutched in his trembling hands- Adrian actually looks a little bit... cute? In a pathetic, dirty stray caught in the rain type of way, of course.

The only real difference is that you'd be much kinder to the stray.

"Alright, shut it, stalker."

Adrian's mouth snaps closed, his tail trying to tuck further at your dangerously low voice.

"Obviously, this severe-" you flap a stack of photos at him, causing him to duck his head and whimper, "-invasion of my privacy can't go unpunished."

Adrian's eyes become impossibly bigger as they flash up to watch you stand. His ears suddenly perk, his tail tugs against his grip as it tries to hesitantly wag.

Jesus, he's shameless.

This is gonna be fun.

But first, a plan. You don't want Adrian getting too bold, so what better way to keep him in his place than by tying him there? Looking around his room, you don't have much to work with, but you're resourceful; a lace from his sneakers should do just fine (who keeps shoes in their room? what a creep).

"Alright. Sit."

Adrian is falling to his knees before his brain can process the words. When it does, he isn't quick enough to bite down on the high keen that builds in his throat.

You scoff, mentally scorning yourself for ignoring his shit for so long, then go to pull a lace. Adrian watches in rapt attention as you test its strength, your hands flexing so tantalizingly as you pull the string harshly several times over.

He holds his breath on instinct when your scrutinizing glare scans the room again.

"Okay, bed. Back to the headboard. Now."

Adrian scrambles up immediately, pulling some of the sheets off in his hurry, eager to obey before you change your mind.

You follow right after, kneeling up and leaning over him to tie his hands to the headboard above him. His dry throat click as he gulps.

You're so close, your heavenly scent filling his lungs like a sweet paralyzing vapor, he can feel the heat radiating from your skin despite the clothes between you, he could probably taste you if he just stuck out his tongue...

He whines as you yank the shoelace tight with a grunt before tying it off. You tug on his hands once more, forcing the string deeper into his skin, and your hum of satisfaction is drowned out by Adrian's low groan.

What a wonderful feeling, the sharp sting of the lace grounding him down like he needs to be; he can't help twisting and pulling until the burn intensifies, imagining it's your firm hands holding him so tightly...

"Jesus, freak, you're already getting into it?"

Adrian just whimpers, barely registering the question past your condescending tone as he continues to squirm.

You suddenly grab the front of his shirt and pull him forward until he's partially hovering off the mattress, the combined pressure of your knuckles under his chin and the shoestring grating his tender wrists pulls a breathy moan along with.

You lean in close, practically growling as you say, "Don't do my job for me, mutt."

You press a relatively fresh bruise on his arm just to see him twitch and bite his lip (it’s actually from a week ago, that’s how good he is at maintaining your marks for you!). It is pretty gratifying.

Almost as gratifying as the bulge you spot between his wantonly spread legs.

A breathless laugh punches out of you. It's oddly jarring to see, and you would later deny that it's slightly impressive, but it's not an entirely unpleasant sight.

"God, you're fucking pathetic. But you know that, don't you, you little creep?"

If your words weren't enough to have Adrian shaking out of his skin, you lean closer and nip his ear; he jerks back instinctively at the pain, which only makes its sting so much sweeter when you sink your teeth in and pull back.

He doesn’t bother trying to keep himself quiet.

“This isn’t even a punishment for you, is it? Is it, you fucking perv?”

Adrian is so far beyond saving face, he’s mostly beyond communication of any kind, so he just shakes his head fervently and grunts and hopes it’s good enough.

“Use your words, mutt.”

He gasps as you yank his throbbing ear, pulling his face closer to yours- oh dear god he can feel your hot breath against his cheeks, every detail of your perfect face so confident and dangerous and ethereal, your sparkling eyes look positively deadly and Adrian is ready to submit himself to their perils-

“Answer me," your sharp words make his lashes flutter, but he keeps his eyes wide open to stare at your taunting smile hanging just inches from his face, "are you getting off on this?”

He nods, he’s starting to get dizzy with all this nodding but he doesn't feel capable of much else, then you tug his hair back with the most glorious burn-

“Ah-Yes! Yes, I love- I love it, please- give me- more- please, I need- I need-“

He cuts off with a choked sound as your fingers slide up his throat and tighten, all too happy to oblige.

"That what you want? You happy now?" You taunt, your breath against the shell of his ear raising goosebumps all over his body.

He tries to nod against your grip, causing you to smirk and push further.

Oh god yes please-

Garbled moans fight their way from his throat as his eyes roll back in ecstasy, his straddled legs pressing tightly together as he thrashes desperately against the headboard, his whole body trembling and pushing up and up in search of contact- but you keep pulling away, putting more pressure on his neck to support yourself, bringing out the most pitiful little whimpers.

"Use your words, puppy."

Puppy.

Adrian chokes for reasons entirely unrelated to your hand on his neck. His tail, which had been beating a rapid tempo since you sat him down, starts flailing into overdrive.

It takes considerably more effort, but Adrian needs to please you- maybe you’ll even reward him!- so he coughs and gasps until he can force out,

"Y-Yes,” a strained cough, “Tha-agh-thank- you-"

A smile curls your lips unbidden. Such initiative! You let your fingers stroke over his throat as your hand presses in harder.

"There, that's a good boy."

Adrian's vision whites out.

He’s not even aware of the stream of whines and moans that force their way from beneath your fingers, he doesn't notice how his body squirms against the pressure of you on top of him, he couldn't tell the frantic thumping of his tail from that of his heart- all he can focus on is the red hot ecstasy filling every inch of him to bursting, the transcendent bliss of being so thoroughly claimed, so completely controlled, so wholly owned by you.

He's still hiccupping moans and thumping his tail when you withdraw your hand for fear of suffocating him, these needy little noises escaping his already bruising throat.

His head lolls back and his mouth falls open as you remain suspended above him, taking in your handiwork.

He’s so vulnerable, his entire body open and happily exposed to you, every muscle trembling in the aftershocks. His chest heaves as sweat and tears drip down onto his shirt, but he seems to pay no mind as his vacant eyes flutter up at you. He struggles to keep them open as a dopey grin spreads across his bitten lips, and you have to bite your own to stop from returning it.

Then, your eyes travel down to the steadily shrinking tent of his pants, now adorned with a dark wet stain- just like you expected.

Hot.

"Pathetic."

You sit back on you heels, seemingly alerting Adrian to your absence as his hand flies up to grab his throat with a high whine- but you cut that shit off right away.

"Yeah, no, I'm not trying to catch a murder charge tonight, thanks. Besides," your eyes pointedly flick down between his spread legs, causing his face to heat up though he makes no move to close them, "it looks like you got more than your share- frankly, you should be grateful for anything I'm willing to give you."

Adrian's voice is hoarse when he tries to insist, "I am! I-" he cuts off with a heavy cough, which only has you wincing with guilt a little. "I'm- I'm grateful. I am!"

You don't doubt it, especially looking into those watery, red-rimmed puppydog eyes of his. However, you do like to be cruel, and you did just get a bunch of texts from some of your friends about this 'super crazy thing you don't wanna miss and you gotta get down here right now!', (and you're maybe feeling a little uncharacteristically giddy as you fully process your situation) so...

"Doesn't matter, I can't reward this insolence."

You untie the shoelace with a deft tug and slide off the bed without another word.

Adrian just barely stops himself from whining again, the sudden loss of the pressure around his wrists leaving him feeling untethered. He has to dig his nails into his hands as he watches you collect your things (the covered platter lay forgotten on the table, insult to injury), just to keep from reaching out for you.

He wants desperately to follow you, but he can't make his body move for how relaxed and heavy it feels, and he knows it would probably just upset you more anyway- and not in the good way.

“Oh, and Adrian?” You slap the doorframe as you hang off of it, and your use of his name has Adrian's groggy head springing up to face you instantly, ears high and eyes hopeful.

“Next time you want a picture of me, just ask. That way I can knock some sense into you right away.” You tap the frame again, a crooked grin fixing your lips before you push off.

“See ya tomorrow!”

Still too fuzzy to move, and in fresh shock from that almost-genuine smile, he can only listen forlornly as your steps grow fainter and fainter until the door shuts downstairs. Then, he's helpless to do anything beyond replay the events of the past ten minutes in obsessive detail in attempts to permanently document every single sensation you gave to him.

He only manages to move about a half hour later, when his phone buzzes with a text.

He slowly leans over the bed and lifts his phone from the floor, blinking blearily as he reads... your name. Attached to a ludicrously extravagant lunch order for tomorrow.

The phone drops from his fingers like lead.

How?

His heart starts racing as he wracks his brain to recall when you put his number in your phone- then, his tail starts up again as he wonders if he'll be punished for already having yours in his (not for anything weird! he just likes to type out walls of text complimenting every part of you and telling you exactly the ways he wants you to destroy him and then deleting them- but maybe he'll send the next one).

It must mean something good if you want to keep in close contact with him, right? That must mean you aren't really mad at him, right? That must mean you like him, right? You still think he’s a good boy, right?

Another text lights up his phone. He scrambles to grab it back, hands shaking as he holds the screen close to his face.

[ur gnna b my bitch 4evr now]

A shaky giggle escapes him.

Those are easily the most beautiful words he’s ever read.

thanks so much for reading! feel free to send a request <3

check my pinned post~

[destinationtoast]

Hello! I keep hearing that fandom culture has changed, and there are less comments now than there were years ago. Have you noticed this in your analysis? Is the percentage of comments being left today lower than before?

Hey! Thanks for the question -- it prompted me to start collecting data about comments (after procrastinating on it for a while, because I had to write new code to gather comment data). I've also seen other discussions from folks also thinking about how to do this kind of analysis (like in the fandom data projects community) -- hopefully we'll end up with multiple people attacking this from different angles and getting a variety of data about comments!

I'll give a sneak preview that partially addresses your question and contains some good news. If we look at the fraction of AO3 works that get at least one comment (focusing just on one-shots for now), I think things have gotten better over the past decade on AO3*:

In other words, it tentatively looks like more works were getting at least one comment in 2024 than in 2014 (for a variety of time periods). One caveat, though -- if a bunch of works with no comments got deleted in the interim, there will be survivor bias here. I'll try to look into that possibility later. Another caveat: this is based on only like ~100 randomly selected works from each year -- this may all change with more data!

Another interesting tidbit: I still see some of the 2014 works getting comments. In fact, ~30% of works have gotten new comments over 5 years after they were posted, and it looks like ~10% of one-shots posted back in Mar 2014 got a new comment in 10 years later, in 2024.

I'm still doing other analyses; there may be other factors that better match with the discourse around how comment culture has changed. It could be that comment activity peters out faster now than it did back then, for instance. Or the total number of comments left on the popular works is less now than it was back then (though my current methods may not be able to capture that). Edit thanks to quick eagle-eyed readers: it's likely that some of what people are thinking about is ratio of comments to hits -- that is hard to compare in 2014 to 2024, because we don't know which hits came from which years. But I am working on some analyses along those lines. :)

If you have other hypotheses about what's changed in commenting culture, feel free to share! I'll look into what I can.

Some methodology notes:

*I've been tackling this by comparing AO3 one-shots posted in early 2014 to one-shots posted in 2024, and comparing activity in the days/weeks/months immediately after the works were posted. (To start with, I'm only scraping the first page of comments for each work -- meaning the first 20 comment threads -- so there are lots of comments I'm potentially missing for the really popular works. But for many works, this captures all the comments, and I think it may be sufficient for a lot of the analyses I am interested in.)

I'm choosing to focus on 2014 vs. 2024 because 2024 is close to now (but it's been long enough for comments to have settled down a bit), and 2014 was well after AO3 was established (thus it was already a pretty lively time on AO3). I don't want to collect data about every single year because it's too time intensive/too hard on AO3's servers. But if people think that I should be looking at different years, I'm interested in feedback.

Because it's only been ~10 months since March 2024, I am limiting a lot of my analyses to only look at commenting activity the first ~10 months after works were posted in both cases.

[kitkatt0430]

Welp, I've been using external methods of auto-backing up my tumblr but it seems like it doesn't do static pages, only posts.

So I guess I'll have some manual backing up to do later

Still, it's better than nothing and I'm using the official tumblr backup process for my smaller blogs so hopefully that'll net the static pages and direct messages too. But. My main - starstruckpurpledragon - 'backed up' officially but was undownloadable; either it failed or it'd download a broken, unusable, 'empty' zip. So *shrugs* I'm sure I'm not the only one who is trying to back up everything at once. Wouldn't be shocked if the rest of the backups are borked too when I try to download their zips.

There are two diff ways I've been externally backing up my tumblr.

TumblThree - This one is relatively straight forward in that you can download it and start backing up immediately. It's not pretty, but it gets the job done. Does not get static pages or your direct message conversations, but your posts, gifs, jpegs, etc are all there. You can back up more than just your own blog(s) if you want to as well.

That said, it dumps all your posts into one of three text files which makes them hard to find. That's why I say it's 'not pretty'. It does have a lot of options in there that are useful for tweaking your download experience and it's not bad for if you're unfamiliar with command line solutions and don't have an interest in learning them. (Which is fair, command line can be annoying if you're not used to it.) There are options for converting the output into nicer html files for each post but I haven't tried them and I suspect they require command line anyway.

I got my blogs backed up using this method as of yesterday but wasn't thrilled with the output. Decided that hey, I'm a software engineer, command line doesn't scare me, I'll try this back up thing another way. Leading to today's successful adventures with:

TumblrUtils - This one does take more work to set up but once it's working it'll back up all your posts in pretty html files by default. It does take some additional doing for video/audio but so does TumblThree so I'll probably look into it more later.

First, you have to download and install python. I promise, the code snake isn't dangerous, it's an incredibly useful scripting language. If you have an interest in learning computer languages, it's not a bad one to know. Installing python should go pretty fast and when it's completed, you'll now be able to run python scripts from the command line/terminal.

Next, you'll want to actually download the TumblrUtils zip file and unzip that somewhere. I stuck mine on an external drive, but basically put it where you've got space and can access it easily.

You'll want to open up the tumblr_backup.py file with a text editor and find line 105, which should look like: ''' API_KEY = '' '''

So here's the hard part. Getting a key to stick in there. Go to the tumblr apps page to 'register' an application - which is the fancy way of saying request an API. Hit the register an application button and, oh joy. A form. With required fields. *sigh* All the url fields can be the same url. It just needs to be a valid one. Ostensibly something that interfaces with tumblr fairly nicely. I have an old wordpress blog, so I used it. The rest of the fields should be pretty self explanatory. Only fill in the required ones. It should be approved instantly if everything is filled in right.

And maybe I'll start figuring out wordpress integration if tumblr doesn't die this year, that'd be interesting. *shrug* I've got too many projects to start a new one now, but I like learning things for the sake of learning them sometimes. So it's on my maybe to do list now.

Anywho, all goes well, you should now have an 'OAuth Consumer Key' which is the API key you want. Copy that, put in between the empty single quotes in the python script, and hit save.

Command line time!

It's fairly simple to do. Open your command line (or terminal), navigate to where the script lives, and then run: ''' tumblr_backup.py <blog_name_here> '''

You can also include options before the blog name but after the script filename if you want to get fancy about things. But just let it sit there running until it backs the whole blog up. It can also handle multiple blogs at once if you want. Big blogs will take hours, small blogs will take a few minutes. Which is about on par with TumblThree too, tbh.

The final result is pretty. Individual html files for every post (backdated to the original post date) and anything you reblogged, theme information, a shiny index file organizing everything. It's really quite nice to dig through. Much like TumbleThree, it does not seem to grab direct message conversations or static pages (non-posts) but again it's better than nothing.

And you can back up other blogs too, so if there are fandom blogs you follow and don't want to lose or friends whose blogs you'd like to hang on to for your own re-reading purposes, that's doable with either of these backup options.

I've backed up basically everything all over again today using this method (my main is still backing up, slow going) and it does appear to take less memory than official backups do. So that's a plus.

Anyway, this was me tossing my hat into the 'how to back up your tumblr' ring. Hope it's useful. :D

[hubris-the-if-game]

Writing update 17/01/2025

HI EVERYONE!

It's been a while but I just wanted to give you guys all a little update on what I've been up to in the past few months.

Chapter 3 is now at around 4k words without a code and honestly I have no clue what I'm going to call the chapter yet. I know that it'll come to me eventually but I just really want to give it a name.

I'll be releasing the teaser for Chapter 3 soon on my patreon and then it will be up on here about a week later so make sure to look out for it!

I made the decision to split cut down Chapter 3 to half of it's original length simply because of how long it was going to be and make what would have been the latter half of it Chapter 4. However, if the word count for Chapter 3 doesn't reach 10k words minimum I will most likely move a few things around to make sure it is still a full length chapter.

I'm aiming to get Chapter 3 out before April because I have exams coming up from Late April-June so I will be taking a break so I can study and make sure I get good results. After that I will begin work on Chapter 4. To be fair I might do a little bit of writing over the exam period but I won't be doing it officially so I will not be doing updates over that period of time but I will make sure to answer any asks I get when I have the time!

I will also hopefully have enough money to commission character portraits of both Tino and Tina during my break so if I find an artist I will get them done.

Enough of me rambling on anyway. See you in the future!

---Quinn

[never-afters]

Hey there, everyone! Just a little announcement regarding AD's development. This week has been kind of busy for me because I had two exams, but thank goodness I'm already done with those. I still have one test next week, but hopefully it won't take too much of my time. Prologue is done, so I'm starting on chapter 1 already! My plan is to finish the first chapter first before releasing a demo to give you a long content to play through.

And speaking of the demo, I finally found a collaborator who will code AD in twine! Thanks to @snowthornes, Abyssal Depths will officially be playable in twine. The two of us have already laid out the plans for the interface and the game mechanics, and I've given them the file for the prologue! However, please be reminded that since there are two of use working on this project, the speed at which the demo gets released and updated will depend on how busy both of our schedule will be.

Moreover, I'll start posting lore info here soon! This is to smoothly build up the lore and to slowly introduce all of you to the universe where Abyssal Depths takes place. And of course, to keep the tumblr active too and let you know guys that I'm here. The character portraits are still on the works too, so I'm thinking of posting the character profiles first and just adding the portraits later on once they're all done.

Anyway, that's all for the meantime. Have a nice day, everyone! ૮ ˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶ ა

[burning-academia-if]

Hello, I am mostly back and recovered at the time of writing this lol. June wasn't very productive writing wise (...for BA), which is fine because I needed that break! Look at everything I did do in June:

RELEASED CHAPTER 2 FINALLY

Spent like 2 weeks fixing bugs (dw chapter 3 I'll get beta readers so it doesn't happen again LOL)

Participated in the Raffle for Palestine + wrote and sent out the story to the winner!

Wrote about 5k words of Chapter 3

Wrote and edited Zoe's back story

Wrote most of Lars back story because I was inspired (sorry you won't get this until after Chapter 3 drops)

I'm pretty happy to have released Chapter 2! I'm gonna be honest, this felt like such a daunting release lol When I started BA, I was expecting no one to read it save for a handful of people and I'd just be chilling and writing mostly for myself like usual, so releasing it with over 1.5k followers was very daunting. With that said, I am glad people overall enjoyed the new chapter! The plan is for Chapter 3 not to take as long, but life is still hectic so we'll see. At the very least, it hopefully won't be any later then October (BA's one year anniversary month!).

I also just want to give another shout out to everyone who participated in the raffle for Palestine! Raising over two thousand euros in two weeks is still amazing to me, and I'm happy the IF community could come together like this to help out a cause! This was lowkey another thing I was nervous about since I've never really done anything that's felt like a personal commission before (asks definitely feel different lol), but other then my initial nerves the whole thing was a really nice experience!

Now, going into July, I want to focus on the UI updates I want to make. I have some things I want to shift around and change, and since coding is my biggest weakness I know it's one of those things I'm going to have to focus on. If things go well, I'm hoping to do a pure UI update by August. It'll mostly be the menu pages (achievements/stats/relationships/etc), but there are a few other things I want to add in and adjust outside of it. As for Zoe's backstory, that should be out soon, so keep an eye out of that! Finally, I also might not be too active in July. For personal reasons, July is always a hard month for me. Hopefully it isn't obvious, but just in case I'm not around as much as usual, that's why!

OH and before I forget, here's this month's chapter preview ft Angry Rook:

Lastly, I made the questionable decision to make a side IF. Updates will be very sporadic since BA is and will always be my main project until its completion. But if you want to follow it, it's To Taste Sweet Silver. An 18+ gaslamp fantasy about trying to steal the Fruit of the Old Gods in order to bring the world to an end. It's a little more niche I think, but feel free to check it out! The demo shouldn't take too long to get out since I did accidentally write most of opening already.

[ddwcaph-game]

NP Mechanic Update!

I totally wasn't expecting the results on the last poll, so here's an update about the changes I'm doing to the NP system!

Overall, I'm happy with how the NP choices turned out, but I wasn't really satisfied with how you gained NP/Max NP per chapter. I wanted it to be a precious resource, but even without the "threat" of potential consequences later, it seemed too restrictive considering the limited amount you get.

But with the new difficulty settings, I figured out a new system that I'm more happy with. Here are the major changes:

You will now recover 1 NP* whenever you make a choice that has a notification

You now gain +1 Max NP for every 2,500 EXP** gained (this makes getting EXP actually meaningful)

Beginning with the school bus scene: If you don't have enough NP for a choice, you can take a "loan" of up to 99 NP

When you are below 0 NP, you will gain the 🤯 [Headache!!!] Status Effect (this means MC will always be below 0 NP after the school bus scene to serve as a tutorial)

You can't take any more NP loans while you have a headache, and the penalties are equal to the amount of NP you're missing (-50 NP means -50% All Stats and EXP)

You will no longer gain Max NP when completing a chapter

You still gain NP for completing a chapter, but the amount you gain is now based on your Max NP (this means the amount will be more consistent since it will no longer be based on the difference between your current NP and Max NP)

All quests now reward Max NP

Easier difficulty will now give less EXP, and Harder difficulty will give more EXP (since it didn't make sense the other way around)

*This amount is based on the difficulty you selected.

** This amount is also based on the difficulty, but even with Easy Difficulty giving less EXP, you should still gain more Max NP overall (and vice versa)

Being able to slowly recover NP during the chapter means you can now feel less guilty when picking choices with a lower NP cost, although I'll have to adjust some of the NP costs so you still need to think about what to spend it on.

The new loan feature will hopefully make higher-cost NP choices more accessible, while also giving it more of a risk vs. reward mechanic. Is a short-term advantage or changing the story branch worth an EXP and All Stats Penalty for the rest of the chapter? This also makes it less frustrating if you are a few NP short of a choice you wanted to make.

My only problem with this, is that it'll now be awkward and clunky to check for your current NP amount since you have to check the stats screen every time... but I can't really do anything about that. I could add it to the notifications, but they're cluttered enough already. Just another reason to make me more excited to develop the VN, I guess. Hehe.

Anyway, I'm just about done coding the new changes, so I'm almost back to writing actual scenes again! What do you all think? Lemme know your thoughts!

[aurorauau]

a post about history, Richard, Keith, and so on

this is an edited and hopefully better version of my previous post so we're going into historical homosexuality in Japan and tying all that into Richard and his relationships as an interesting example of a gay character in RGD whose arc touches on some of the most relevant points

the first thing I noted was the interaction between different religious codes and practices in historical Japan... Buddhism was more concerned with sex and lack thereof than Shinto, and the monks had codified sexual relations with acolytes that I'll get to later. this was met with disapproval in the 16th century by Christian travelers (see: The Christian Century in Japan) so Christianity was notably the most homophobic of the religious currents... but it's also a minority group in our world's Japan. to us it's relevant not just for historical interactions with the west or because RGD Japan is notably more americanised, but because the Maiougis seem to come from a Christian background...

some visuals of Stella's wake set in a church. it's possible that in the RGD setting the main faiths were suppressed, at one point Wang claims otherwise just as an aside and since it wasn't talked about further I assume these characters are in church organically... and not because you literally can't get a Shinto style funeral anymore

from the Meiji era onward, homophobia tends to be tied to western influences. sexology that was popularised by Meiji scholars for example claimed homosexual acts caused one to physically and psychically androgynise. this era also had the only anti-sodomy law in Japan, from 1872 to 1880

the current Constitution of Japan succeeded the Meiji Constitution during American occupation. since marriage is defined between a man and a woman, some gay couples use the adult adoption system (futsu) in which the older partner adopts the younger partner, allowing for them to be officially recognized as a family and receive some legal benefits (Same-Sex Marriage in Japan)

I bring that up since Keith is framed as Richard's honorary brother in law since Stella wanted them to marry but never got the chance to do so before her death, but it's Richard who takes him into the family. you could call it symbolic if you so wished

and Keith's role was specifically of a guardian to Yuuji, which is part of what drew him to Stella... Richard and Keith's common goal is to raise him and though Richard's identity was closely tied to fatherhood, it's very specific to the point that he has not married and procreated, that is he is not Yuuji's biological father, and happily unmarried...

unmarried (and check the housewife comment to Cyrus here) doesn't mean lonely of course, and he has at least one mutual relationship with a man to begin with. Richard and Cyrus were also employer and employee, but their relationship is much more equal than that suggests and shopping or cooking isn't part of Cyrus' bodyguard job. Richard doesn't seem to have many of those social disadvantages of homosexuality, and owes a lot to his economic independence. since he's his own boss (he kind of works for Rose but Rose dgaf) as a moneylender he's not subject to employer discrimination, and since his strict parents are out of the picture he leads the life he wants as the new family head...

as for Yuuji... if Yuuji didn't exist there'd be more pressure for Richard or Stella to marry (as Stella already wants to...) I truly think in part Richard's attachment to his child is that of fulfilling a role. not that he's disinterested in it, he's much more invested in parenthood than Stella... but he's as invested in it as he is because the experience of raising the next generation and in a way a man's duty is possible without coupling with a woman

his own lived experience makes it harder for the internalised homophobia that torments Keith to take hold... but I'm sure younger Richard before the disaster, still under his parents, was a much different case. meanwhile Keith is trying to make sense of himself from a very different experience

(image to break up the text a bit because we're going to have a lot of text from hereon. sorry...)

remember those monks? there will be discussion of sexual practices between adult men and boys, so warning for that and sexual abuse in general...

homosexual relations in Buddhist monasteries were specifically age-structured and codified as the older partner (nenja) would be a monk, and the younger partner an acolyte (chigo) so this is similar as in China and basically wherever in the (ancient or otherwise) world you pointed to how an "acceptable homosexuality" had to work in a patriarchal structure. the boy child has the same properties as the girl child in that social context (see Meijiu's comment on Zel, her being treated as a product and his own experience with that)

the samurai class also had something like this, with a boy in the wakashū (adolescent) category apprenticed to an experienced adult man. these practices developed into the system known as shudō, wherein that older partner, in the role of the nenja "would teach the chigo martial skills, warrior etiquette, and the samurai code of honor, while his desire to be a good role model for his chigo would lead him to behave more honorably himself; thus a shudō relationship was considered to have a mutually ennobling effect"

Like later Edo same-sex practices, samurai shudō was strictly role-defined; the nenja was seen as the active, desiring, penetrative partner, while the younger, sexually receptive wakashū was considered to submit to the nenja's attentions out of love, loyalty, and affection, rather than sexual desire. Among the samurai class, adult men were (by definition) not permitted to take the wakashū role; only preadult boys (or, later, lower-class men) were considered legitimate targets of homosexual desire. In some cases, shudō relationships arose between boys of similar ages, but the parties were still divided into nenja and wakashū roles. (The Changing Nature of Sexuality: The Three Codes Framing Homosexuality in Modern Japan)

I do think the Keith/Richard dynamic in the text played into this tradition (more relevant to their era than it seems) if only to subvert it a bit. but note the addition of lower-class men (hierarchy being the most important thing here between a boss and ambitious subordinate, yes?) and this:

Male prostitutes and actor-prostitutes serving male clientele were originally restricted to the wakashū age category, as adult men were not perceived as desirable or socially acceptable sexual partners for other men. During the 17th century, these men (or their employers) sought to maintain their desirability by deferring or concealing their coming-of-age and thus extending their "non-adult" status into their twenties or even thirties; this eventually led to an alternate, status-defined shudō relationship which allowed clients to hire "boys" who were, in reality, older than themselves. This evolution was hastened by mid-17th-century bans on the depiction of the wakashū's long forelocks, their most salient age marker, in kabuki plays; intended to efface the sexual appeal of the young actors and thus reduce violent competition for their favors, this restriction eventually had the unintended effect of decoupling male sexual desirability from actual age, so long as a suitably "youthful" appearance could be maintained. (Male Colors: The Construction of Homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan)

as the socially acceptable partner is decoupled from age, that fixation on youthful appearance remains, much like for women... RGD does not feature male sex workers (this may have been a missed opportunity idk) but still with one Meijiu and Rose we could draw parallels between how these social and gender roles were defined wrt sexuality and moreso being a sexual receptacle

let's see how Keith approaches Richard (even giving him symbolically the "active" role in this interaction, but he still can't be entirely direct)

the dynamic is very defined by age and class and both characters are aware of it... but it's all not as clear cut as it could be. making it very interesting even in that aspect before they strike up their key connection (joined in revenge for Stella and Yuuji)

since Richard's own key relationship is with a man his own age (stated so many times) (Cyrus) I truly hoped the dynamic with Keith wouldn't frame him as recreating this kind of hierarchial relationship if he's one of the vn's various gay characters who is totally removed from it. like I've said the dynamic with Keith plays with their differences (age, class, rural and urban backgrounds, soldier and civilian - also part of the dynamic with Cyrus) as important and imo becomes even more interesting with how they dissolved into each other in the last season...

the theme of hierarchy ties into Keith's biggest conflict with the world, the society he lives in... and at the heart of everything with himself as a deeply repressed gay man (shout-out this post)

despite growing homophobia in the Meiji era, the samurai expression of homosexuality was present during that period and flourished in the Sino- and Russo-Japanese wars, due to the association of the warrior code of the samurai with nationalism (an association that works well for Richard's arc)

with the context of Keith's general repression, it's most likely that his experience of sexual relations between men was associated with hierarchy, and abuse, specifically of the young by the older and higher ranked. thus, Keith's view of sexuality is as bleak as what he had a chance to see for himself. being with women doesn't come naturally to him, while being with men in that way is better left not considered... with all that said, what does Keith's shift towards nationalism (by way of Richard) in the last season signify for his view of sexuality?

before the last season it came off that in Keith's mind's eye love between two men can be saved, but sex can't... it's not an uncommon view in any case, since much of homophobia targets gay sex specifically... a sexual relationship between Keith and Alan would have been recontextualised after the fact Keith-style to better fit in his worldview

some Alan and Keith moments. Keith's view on their relationship shifts over time, even if full of bitterness later on, he's more open with himself when he doesn't hold back feelings like jealousy

(I've posted about my Keith fic project on here enough when I could've been writing more but yes, that includes a sexual relationship between Keith and Richard in the context of him trying to make sense of his sexuality after airing out all his grievances to Alan more openly in that arc finale)

I often lack a conclusion in my long posts... one could say no climax, no punch line, no meaning. so this too is yaoi. I think the point was asking a question about the Richard and Keith dynamic which I hope to answer later. well I hope there's some food for thought and discussion in here...

[kaiowut99]

Crow Story Event 1 & Duel Lines Testing VS Aki | Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V TFSP Re-Translation Project (WIP)

(Project Announcement blog post/video)

With my GX 115-116 subs finalized in late August, I went on to get some re-translation work done on Crow's story (which is actually pretty cute around his kids trying to figure out how best to cheer him on and everyone else helping them) and his in-duel lines/bio, while also getting work started on GX 117-119 (and trying to finish up another thing I've dabbled with for months that I'll hopefully swing around to posting soon lol)--with all that done, figured I'd show off his story's first event along with some casual playtesting of his in-duel lines, as well as a peek at Aki's which I haven't shown off (unfortunately she didn't pull off Black Rose Dragon in this one, but her other decks were annoying to test with because of Black Garden lol). The in-duel anime OST was edited in by me, and I quite like how it came out! (The only songs I tweaked were Helpless Battle and Crow's Dueling; love how the timing worked out for the ones I didn't, haha.)

Quick note: Crow's attack-name line for his Arms Wing/Armed Wing has it as "Black Tornado!!", seemingly only in the TF games and in the Duel Terminals--in the anime and Duel Links, it's "Black Charge!!". To keep it consistent, I ported over his "Black Charge" line from DL to replace "Black Tornado" and tweaked the dialogue line accordingly (to this day, Crow still doesn't know where he got "Black Tornado" from). Also, a minor tweak since recording this, but I changed Crow's "I'm going to take you down!" in-duel line to "I'm gonna take you down" for consistency with how I was writing him.

(Also, replacing Crow's one voiceline got me curious about whether or not voices for the other characters that should have voicelines could be added back--I tested by making a folder for Johan and copying in Crow's line files, but I'm guessing it'll take more than that and involve editing the game's code since that didn't work... It'd be a matter of figuring out how to enable those characters to have voicelines, tell the game where to find them to play, and then probably also making them show up for the Voice Test in their bios... But questions for later. [That said, since it was so easy to replace Crow's line, it should be pretty feasible to replace budget!Kazama as Dark Yugi with Kazama's DL lines as appropriate, but that'll be a side thing once the base game's done.]

Going to go full speed ahead with finalizing my 117-119 subs, and then I'll come back to work on Kiryu and close out the 5D's big five's stories. But while mainly working on 117-119, I'll likely also be chipping away some more at the bios on my morning office commutes to keep myself busy, haha. Stay tuned!

Also, as a bonus below, here's a bit from Crow's second story event that I thought was amusing as I drafted it; this is as Crow's looking for his kids (who Martha can't find and is a bit worried about) and finds Jack having his usual ☕ time, ft Carly--and I can definitely hear them having this convo, haha.

(The "moment of zen" lines are from Carly, though I did think they were Jack's for a minute and thought Crow was yanking him from his coffee or something before I checked the game footage, lol. [Not shown here, but after the duel, Crow rushes off with Jack but leaves Carly with his coffee bill 😭])

[splashskitty]

Lore part two remake.

this is a remake of part two I'll be keeping the first part two up but I wanted to make a version where I show the pictures too will my art make it any more clear probably not but I still wanted to do so anyway.

First things first this is going to be a very long post if you don't like long post you should probably not read any of my lore posts cuz all of them are very long and this one will probably be extra long because it comes with art too.

Second the art is not going to be very good don't expect it to be good if you've seen my art before it's not going to be as good as that either very sketchy and bad I didn't fix anything on it so it's bad this is also just my first time drawing like this so expect it to be very bad!!

Third the characters aren't going to be fully colored but will be colors coded so you know who is who

Nerium is pink

Nino is red

Nepta is Orange

And Actaea is grey

I'm pretty sure that's everyone in part one I have to make a part two of this probably even part three who knows

Anyway let's start the lore!!

This is Nerium at 8 Nepta at 12 and Nino at 4 yeah I don't how to draw children and I also don't really know how to draw adults people are hard mostly Nino because he looks a way to tall to be a 4 year old I wasn't really thinking about that when drawing him and honestly I think he would be a tall kid maybe not that tall Nerium definitely would just be short that's all I really have to say about it I just wanted to draw them all together.

And this was the first thing I drew I did for this Which is also why it's especially bad so don't mind how bad it looks it mostly gets better from here not much but you know mostly.

Hopefully with time I will get better at scaling the characters and making them not look so big or small at times but that's just something that I'll probably get better at with time :p

This is Nerium getting stung by a wasp at 8

I gave her a scar for it that doesn't really make sense but I'm keeping it she doesn't still have it as an adult but I'm keeping it for when she's a kid to a teenager.

Mostly just for cool scar reasons even again it doesn't even make any sense and that is not how that would look at all but oh well :p

This is Nino trying to get Nerium to take care of the bees with him because that was something she used to do with him before she got stung by a wasp.

And then Nerium running away out of fear cuz she scared of the bees and wasps now and then Nino being confused because he thought it was their thing because it used to be.

And also just a little bit of extra lore since I didn't draw anything for it Nerium and Nino's relationship becomes a little strained after this but after their teenagers or Nerium is they become besties again or best siblings and they mostly just help each other with the farm or Nino trying to teach Nerium how to fish she doesn't like it.

That's about that I just really wanted to talk about Nino and Neriums relationship because they're the siblings ever just like me and my sibling <3

This is Nerium and Actaea as little kids probably 8 and 9 playing ponies specifically My Little pony friendship is magic don't mind the timeline and the fact that this is the My Little pony from 2010 and these should be grown adults later they had their my little pony friendship is magic earlier I guess I don't know just don't think about it too much.

This is my favorite of the art I drew and I really need to draw more of Nerium and Actaea friendship and strained relationship later on they have a lot of drama and trauma and I really love them.

This is Nerium and Actaea as teenagers like 16 and 15 maybe I think Nerium would be a bit older than Actaea and I wanted to draw them being friends again because I just wanted to show how strong their friendship was

They have friendship bracelets and everything two peas in a pod.

oh and another little bit of lore I don't know if it's easy to tell but they're supposed to be opposites one of them is multicolored the other one monochrome Nerium is mostly nice so Actaea is supposed to be mostly mean Nerium is very emotional so Actaea has very good control of her emotions Nerium has siblings and a good amount of friends later while Actaea it's kind of a loner and they're really just supposed to work off of each other I know it's probably hard to tell but they're really supposed to be the yin to each other's yang at least that's how I'm trying to make them :p

This is Nepta leaving for college and Nino being excited for her well Nerium is sad at the thought of any kind of change and somebody leaving her

Just so you know their age at this point Nepta is 20 Nerium is 16 Nino is 12 it was hard for Nepta to get into college but she did!!

Now what she's going to college for I don't really know college much but something clothing or fashion related because that's her passion :3

At this point Nerium starts to reach and mental low of sorts the idea of change and abandonment leaves her in a state of depression and mental spiral and she just kind of starts to lose it a little bit

I don't really have anything else to add to that except for she's got bipolar disorder and abandonment issues and she's just not having a good time.

This is Nerium stabbing Actaea in the eye it was some kind of fucked up way to make Actaea have eye problems like she does or something like that and again she had a mental breakdown so this is just the result of it.

No it's not right to stab your friends even if you have bipolar disorder and have some kind of abandonment issue like things but that's what She did and that's how the cookie crumbles :p

This is Actaea her parents that are stick figures Nerium parent / Mom that's also a stick figure

Obviously Actaea's parents aren't happy but Nerium's mom convinces them not to get the law involved don't ask I'll decide how that works later

And Actaea and her family end up moving because they think Nerium is crazy and if they're not getting the law involved they're getting themselves the fuck out of there and just pretend that that makes sense okay it's my story damn it.

Also this has nothing to do with anything but if you know my character Actaea you know she has horns in animal crossing well I tried to incorporate that into her hair and I just think it looks really cute and that's just something I'm going to be doing for her from now on

And this is Nino trying to comfort Nerium because at this point he's kind of the only one on her side not that their mother isn't but Nino really the only one she will be by her side no matter what

And this is when they're relationship really starts to get better because Nino becomes all that Nerium has for a little while until she meets Zinnia who becomes a very important friend to her as well.

And again there will be more lore next time as I just said you will see Zinnia and will pretty much just get to meet her friend group this is all I could fit in one tumblr post but I think this is a good way to end it with sibling love who doesn't love siblings!!

next part will mostly be about friendship because friendship is magic and I'm pretty positive I will definitely have to make a part three that will be about family/her life as an adult because these posts will really just be about going through Nerium life.

This is really fun it was like a little experimental thing again it's not very physically good but I think it probably helped me learn some things and it definitely helped me keep my mind off of some things and it was a really good distraction and a really good way to get better at making quick art because I've always took my time and try to make everything look good so it was fun to do something that I didn't care if looked bad or didn't try to make look good.

Is it definitely very quick I got this done in about two days all of these arts so I guess maybe expect another one in another two days or so I don't know but for sure I'm not going to rush myself but I am going to be working on it and I am excited to share her friend group and to share more lore.

Nerium has been a character who's been in my life since I was about 7 and she's very important to me and she means a lot note that a lot of this is self indulgent and probably won't make a lot of sense but but it's mine and I love it and I'm so happy to be able to draw it out and actually make it feel real the story's always been in my head so it's nice to actually put it on paper I guess more on the phone but you know it's just really refreshing!!

Anyway if you see any spelling mistakes no you don't I'm dyslexic and I'm probably not going to fix them and if I do that will be later. and also note the story is subject to change Nerium is a character that changes with me and so does her story so if it doesn't make sense it may make more sense as time goes on and it may not so just know that.

And again this is my first time ever doing something like this so I really hope you enjoy and I hope that it makes even a little bit of sense if not that's okay too it makes sense in my brain and I suppose that's good enough I just had so much fun doing it and I can't wait for part two hope you enjoyed sorry for the long post don't mind spelling mistakes and if you liked this you should check out my other lore post they don't have art but that is where you get to learn and see my characters see you next time <3

[ask-robokasa-and-rui]

CHAPTER 3 INTRO//

I was...weird...to say the least. When I was 3, I would rip out my hair just to get what I wanted...and I even resorted in hurting my mom at the age of 6. Ever since then...my parents treated me like I was a monster...and everyone else did...except for someone. Tsukasa. My older brother. He always knew how to calm me down. He was the favorite, but I never cared about that. When he started university, he let me move in his house. Ever since then, I've been the happiest person imaginable.

Which ramen cup should I buy...?

Trust me, the seafood is delicious!

Ena, I'm sorry...but I even though I like seafood, I hate seafood flavored things.

Fair point. Then I can't help you here...I'm going to the cereal section! Be right back!

Okay! You know...Ena is super fun to be with! At first I thought she would be mean, but she's the total opposite! S-Somewhat...

Ring ring

Hello?

Hey, Saki...?

Oh, Kanade! Hello!

Are you and Ena at the convenience store still...?

Yep! Why, do you want something?

O-On your way back, can you get me some painkillers...? It's my time of the month...

Oh of course! I'll get you sour worms aswell!

Thank you, talk to you later...

See ya!

When Ena and Saki finish shopping at the convenience store, they go to the pharmacist for pain killers. Then they head back to Tsukasa's house.

We're baaaaaack!!

Euugh....

Hang on there Kanade! Hm? Saki! Do you have the painkillers?

Yes yes, here!

Saki gives the painkillers to Kanade

I hope the affect comes quicker this time...

Hopefully! Hehe...

Now it was dinner time. Even though everyone had jobs, except for Saki, affording food was a bit challenging. The least they could afford are cup noodles. They pray before digging in.

Mmmm~ Cup noodles are the best!

Of course they are! But the vegetable one is disgusting.

HUH?!

Let's not start this again...

Yeah, please?

Hmp! Fine. You win. Anyways, Kanade? You know how to program...right? Do you know anything about robotics?

Well I know their codes...codes for speaking, moving...but I don't know how to build them.

Aw shucks...

You're going to make a robot?

Not at the moment, but they look so...interesting! I want to try and make a profit off of it so we can afford food! B-besides cup noodles...

I believe in you Saki!

Huh?

I'm sure you'll do great! Just never give up!

Saki warmly smiles.

Of course! Never!

Tags: @a-120 @mai-mai-mai @bobcross1010 @blankblyke @kusanagi-nene-official-mod @scodscod

[nextinline-if]

May DevBlog - Chapter 2 Progress (Important Updates)

Okay, below is an update on my progress for chapter 2 and what's been written, coded, and what's in the process.

First, I don't have an exact date for the release yet. BUT chapter 2 will be released in July! Beta testing starts in the later part of June :) Those currently still subscribed to Patreon will get first access even though it's paused. Additionally, giveaway winners will get early access, too. I will reach out when it's ready.

Note: You will need to start the game fresh when chapter 2 releases as I used a new file so your previous saves will not work. I apologize for this and I'm going to try to be more mindful after this update so it doesn't happen (hopefully) again. Therefore, if it's been a while since you played, I recommend waiting for this upcoming release before playing again.

UPDATE TO ATTRIBUTES

After much consideration, moving forward the attributes (ex: patience, deception, etc) are going to primarily be used for flavor text.

Your MC may not react the same in all situations. Maybe they are stoic and suspicious with strangers, but patient and open with those close to them. Basically, this will allow you to shape MC more to how you want to envision them.

All of that said, during relevant scenes, the attributes will offer some special choices. However, I really think it's best to not gate keep personality stats for this game. Instead, I'll use them to make playthroughs a little more unique.

Hopefully this feels like a positive change for most of you.

Moving on...I do have another update regarding pets in chapter 2:

Originally, the pet's were going to be included in Capital visit for chapter 2. I've decided to scrap that. Chapter 2 already has a LOT of branching (dozens) and it's just really been stressing me out trying to fit the pets into those particular scenes. Don't worry, you will have other opportunities in the game to include the pets...and you still get to meet them near the beginning of chapter 2!

Okay, if you aren't too disappointed with me at this point, here's the rest of the update...

Word Count (includes code):

Current demo word count: 59,479

Current word count for just ch 2: 57,162

Total game word count (including ch2): 116,641 and counting...

Next, here's the scene order and what's written/coded/in progress:

Scene 1 - completely written and coded

Scene 2 - completely written and coded

Scene 3 - completely written and coded

Scene 4 - completely written and coded

Scene 5 - completely written and coded

Scene 6 - completely written and coded

Scene 7 - complete written, not coded (scene was not planned originally)

Scene 8 - completely written and coded

Scene 9 - 60% written, not coded

Scene 10 - in progress (4 main branches)

Scene 11 - in progress (4 main branches)

Scene 12 - in progress

Scene 13 - completely written, not coded

SPECIAL THANKS

With the help of @manonamora-if, I was able to update some GUI things for a better color contrast and a more responsive game file. Thank you for you help, I truly appreciate it and will be sure to add you to the Credits page when releasing chapter 2.

Thanks to the other beta testers who recently provided feedback so I could fix minor errors in the current demo. I appreciate you as well and will be updating the credit page for you, if you desire to be added.

Okay, I'm off to get chapter 2 completed and coded for beta testing.

-Vi

[izicodes]

3 Days 1 Project

Hiya! 💗Don't mind me as I will be taking part in the coding challenge called #3days1project! 🎉 For the next few weeks, I'll be diving headfirst into the world of coding and creating mini-projects within a tight three-day timeframe!

Why am I doing this?

Well, it all started because I'm bored 😅 Last couple of days, I found myself wanting to do something even more creative in a challenge form and a chance to push my problem-solving skills to the limit. Something that wasn't work-related and the projects I've been working on have been giving me a 'meh' feeling and I start to get bored!

The Challenge

The concept of the challenge is simple yet: I'll be crafting mini-projects using JavaScript initially, and then I'll later transition to Python (maybe even Django) and Java as I progress through my university studies. Each project will be completed within just three days!⏳

Using NeoCites

To keep everything organized and showcase my growing collection of creations, I'll be setting up a website on NeoCities. This site will act as a hub for all my projects, allowing you to explore, learn, and hopefully get inspired. 🌐

Posting Here

I'll also be sharing my journey and project updates on my blog. You can watch me fail and succeed - how fun~! If you have any project ideas you'd like me to try, that are achievable in 3 days, then do let me know! When it comes to sharing the projects themselves, I've got two platforms in mind: GitHub and Replit. Depending on the nature of each project, I'll decide which platform is the best fit. Rest assured, though, you'll have easy access to the source code and can even tinker with it yourself 😌👍🏾

Inspiration and Credits

I owe the inspiration for this challenge to an incredible blog I stumbled upon called @3days1project. Back in 2020, the creator did the same challenge, sharing their awe-inspiring end results every three days - you should definitely check the projects out! They've stopped now but the projects are still there for you to see! I found the blog probably a year ago and promised myself I will tackle the same challenge one day.

[huurrefanfictionreadinglog]

Fix for All Time Statistics

You can find this post also from my website: https://www.huurreauthor.com/news/fix-for-all-time-statistics

Someone informed me that when copying the formulas and codes from Tumblr posts, the quotation marks turn wrong. You're still free to check out the steps in this post.

Bug after bug after bug. I am really thankful for the Discord Server where people have reported these problems whenever they notice anything amiss or wrong. Without them, it would be a lot more difficult to find them. You can join our Discord server through this link. I'm keeping also a master list of all known bugs there for everyone to see. While I'm quick to fix them at the moment, I don't see it necessary to keep that kind of list in the blog. However, I've now collected all the bug-fix posts to the Help page of my website too! 

One of the users noticed that they had wrong values in All Time Statistics in the Yearly Statistics tab. Some fighting and figuring out later, I'm here to give you fixes. First of all, I left the hidden support columns in the Yearly Statistics tab in such a messy state that I'm embarrassed that you have to see them, but... well, nothing I can do now. So, let's get to work, you know the jazz, I'll give you every step and cell and formula and you'll just follow them and hopefully it will work out! As always, these are already fixed to public files so you can always go to make a new copy for yourself and check out from there how they are set.

1. Grab the Yearly Statistics tab and open hidden columns.

2. Scroll to the right until you see columns Y, Z, AA, AB, AC and AD.

3. In the 2024 version, choose cell Z19. In the 2025 version, choose cell Z3. Hox! On the left side of them, is the text Fandom. Replace the old formula with this one:

=IFERROR(INDEX(UNIQUE(FILTER(R_Fandom, F_ReadingStatus="Read")), MATCH(MAX(COUNTIF(FILTER(R_Fandom, F_ReadingStatus="Read"), UNIQUE(FILTER(R_Fandom, F_ReadingStatus="Read")))), COUNTIF(FILTER(R_Fandom, F_ReadingStatus="Read"), UNIQUE(FILTER(R_Fandom, F_ReadingStatus="Read"))), 0)),"")

4. Go to one row down, so in the 2024 version cell Z20 and in the 2025 version cell Z4. Replace the old formula with this one:

=IFERROR(INDEX(UNIQUE(FILTER(S_MainPairing, F_ReadingStatus="Read")), MATCH(MAX(COUNTIF(FILTER(S_MainPairing, F_ReadingStatus="Read"), UNIQUE(FILTER(S_MainPairing, F_ReadingStatus="Read")))), COUNTIF(FILTER(S_MainPairing, F_ReadingStatus="Read"), UNIQUE(FILTER(S_MainPairing, F_ReadingStatus="Read"))), 0)),"")

5. Go to one row down, so in the 2024 version cell Z21 and in the 2025 version cell Z5. Replace the old formula with this one:

=IFERROR(INDEX(UNIQUE(FILTER(O_Rating, F_ReadingStatus="Read")), MATCH(MAX(COUNTIF(FILTER(O_Rating, F_ReadingStatus="Read"), UNIQUE(FILTER(O_Rating, F_ReadingStatus="Read")))), COUNTIF(FILTER(O_Rating, F_ReadingStatus="Read"), UNIQUE(FILTER(O_Rating, F_ReadingStatus="Read"))), 0)),"")

I know, I might often overdo formulas, stacking them on top of each other more than would be needed, but it's better to be safe than sorry.

I would like to remind you now that when counting the most appearing values, it only takes first-time reads into account. While counting how many of them are read will also count rereads. With Most read fandom, pairing and rating in All time statistics, it counts only first-time reads so basically the reading statuses. I will probably edit formulas one day to count in rereads too but it's something for a later date.

I'm also sorry for all the times I wrote raiting instead of rating! English is not my first language and I'm often having problems with that specific word.

I will probably be back at least once during the weekend, but hopefully, I can also focus on relaxing!

[zanyzendraws]

JULY 22 2024 ZENLOG: First Time's the Charm!

Hihi everyone! Welcome to my first ZenLog! Er, first official one! If the layout's a bit rough, apologies! We'll learn as we go along.

This one's a bit of a doozy so here's a neatly color coded table of contents! Depending on what you wanna read, please look for the following colors as you scroll! (Unless you wish to read the whole thing -- in that case, be my guest!)

CONTENTS OF THE ZENLOG

PERSONAL UPDATES

PROJECTS

WHAT TO EXPECT

BEFORE I GO...

With that being said, click "keep reading" to read all of this!

PERSONAL UPDATES

So, unfortunately, I got sick. It's really funny because I didn't feel anything at first, so I didn't think of it.

Turns out that compared to the rest of my family members, I had the most swollen throat out of all of them. I didn't feel anything for a couple of days, so I luckily managed to get some stuff done.

Unfortunately, the symptoms somehow worsened despite taking the antibiotics and mouthwash-gargle thingy. It's hard for me to speak, and I get tired hella easily. Which is inconvenient.

As a result, I've been cooking significantly less, RIP.

I mean, I've managed to cook. Just not as much as I wish I did.

On another note, here are some pics of food that I've been eating...

Salivate!

PROJECTS

There have been multiple projects I've been working on left and right due to my brain being unable to focus on just one. These will be blunt lists of what I've accomplished (accomplishments are in pink).

Hanashima's Advanced Class

Ongoing interviews with discord mutuals and contacts are being conducted to ensure the accuracy of certain scenes. I'm aiming for approx. 15 at least to be included alongside findings from online research. 2/15 have been completed).

Working on character sheets regarding character writing to ensure consistency in the work and I've finalized names for characters I've previously struggled in naming.

Working on bits and pieces of the actual document where the full story is being written. A scene for later down the line has been completed.

[Unnamed WIP Psychological Horror]

Concepts have been written down so I know what I visually want, alongside some sketches of character designs being completed.

I have a rough idea of what I want and the routes I wish to take but I still need to work on an outline- other than that, I have a list of all important characters. More will be added later down the line but they will be minor at best, irrelevant otherwise.

[WIP audio project]

Lists of characters have been completed.

Three characters excluding the main cast (who I plan to redesign) have been drawn in my sketchbook (uncolored but I have a rough idea of what the color selections will be in my noggin).

MISC.

A short comic strip has been completed.

Another comic strip has been in the works; the inking process is completed, though it is yet to be colored and shaded.

Lineart for an animation asset has been completed.

Songs have been compiled and edited for a music-based video.

WHAT TO EXPECT

More updates on said comic scripts and Hanashima's Advanced Class.

Upcoming animation involving a character I've previously shared on this blog.

Playlist video based off of characters I've previously posted about on my channel.

I really wish to focus on Hanashima's Advanced Class so I'll do my best to further buckle down and write, and hopefully I'll message some more of my discord mutuals for the needed interviews (as this interview is for one of the first scenes in the series). Expect a word or page count regarding the writing I've done for the series next time, if not a list of how many scenes or 'episodes' i've written.

I'm reluctant to post about the psychological horror project that's been on my mind admittedly. I don't wish to give too much away (and at the moment, I have no way of coding it... or any coding knowledge).

BEFORE I GO...

I'm gonna do my best to update weekly while I'm on this gap semester, and even once I start going back to college/university/wherever I get my education!

And I'll be fully honest: I hype up these projects from excitement but the reality is that me making them is hella slow despite my attempts to be efficient. So it'll probably be a while before I release anything.

But I hope you guys will have some fun in reading these ZenLogs and will stick along for the journey! If you're not interested, that's okay too! Just enjoy your time on the internet and come back soon!

Take care! <333

-ZanyZenDraws (Zen)

[blissents]

Devlog #1

Hi hi! ෆ˙ᵕ˙ෆ I don't really post often, but I told myself that starting in 2024, I wanted to share what I've been working on! I'm a solo game dev who has been developing a game called Visionaries. It's a romance visual novel that explores grief and loss.

༺✧ STORY ✧༻

"Visionaries": Special individuals with the ability to look into the past. There are a select handful of Visionaries who can also see into the future.

"What happens after we die?" The age-old question with no definitive answer. Many have constructed their own complex theories and stories to try and explain this mystery.

~~~~~

Explore the world of Visionaries as you wake up in an unfamiliar room, unable to speak and move. You're faced with unusual people (who tend to bicker any opportunity they get) only to later discover that they are your assigned Visionaries. These Visionaries have only one task; they intend on looking into your memories.

What is the purpose of Visionaries existing, and why do they insist on looking into your mind?

If you want to read more about the progress I've made on Visionaries, please continue reading below the cut! ෆ˙ᵕ˙ෆ

༺✧ ART ✧༻

Most of my time has been spent working on the art! (I can't feel my hand) My main focus is to finish drawing all of the character sprites as well as finish rendering the backgrounds. I've already come up with all the designs and expressions for the characters, they just need to be rendered :,)

I still need to create their little character info sheets (I have no idea what the word is, haha), where you'll learn their names, ages, and all of that fun stuff ෆ˙ᵕ˙ෆ

Below are some of the sprites :-)

The first two are fully rendered, while the other three need to be finished :,)

As for backgrounds, I have 1 that is fully rendered and 3 that still need to be finished! I'll only be sharing 3/4 today since I'm unsure if I'll be including the one background in the demo.

To be honest, I struggled quite a bit when drawing the backgrounds D: There were a lot of things I envisioned, but unfortunately, I didn't know how to fully portray them. I had some trial and error while coming up with the original designs. That being said, I'm glad I was able to come up with something I felt satisfied with! I'm planning for the rest of the backgrounds to follow the red/brown colored theme as seen in the first photo ෆ˙ᵕ˙ෆ

Of course, there will be more backgrounds than the ones I'm currently showing! I already have some ideas/drafts for those, but they might change depending on the way the story plays out.

༺✧ WRITING ✧༻

So far, I've planned for the demo to have a little less than 9k words. I'm unsure if I'll keep it at 9k words, or if I'll expand it some more so that there will be more content in the demo :-) We'll see!

As for the overall game, there will be at least 2 routes. There will also be 2 romanceable options (one being he/him, the other being she/they). I'm still figuring out how I want to script all of this, so these aspects may change in the future!

The game will also have options where you can choose your pronouns and name!

Here's a small snippet of the script!

I wanted to show the dynamic between two of the characters :-)

༺✧ OTHER ✧༻

Besides writing and coding, I've been coming up with some ideas for the GUI! I don't have any current drafts of that to share, but I'll hopefully include them in a future devlog ෆ˙ᵕ˙ෆ I also have plans on creating the cover art for the game, cgs, more backgrounds, and possibly some promotional art (rip my hand, there's so much I need to draw (╥_╥))

I was thinking about composing the music for the game, but I realized I know absolutely nothing about music and wouldn't even know where to start if I had tried :,) So instead, I've compiled a list of some soundtracks and sound effects I might use! Hopefully, I can share that in the future once I've narrowed down which soundtracks I know I'll be using.

༺✧ CONCLUSION ✧༻

My overall goal is to release the demo sometime during this year! Because I'm doing everything myself (art, script, writing, etc.), it might take me a bit longer to get everything done. My apologies for that! (╥_╥)

Besides that, I really just want to start creating and sharing more of my art. Getting over the mental hurdle of being afraid to show my work is honestly pretty terrifying for me. I normally only share the things I create with close friends, but I think it's time to get over this fear of mine! ᕦ(ò_ó)ᕤ

I was able to make significant progress within these past few weeks since I'm currently on my winter break. Classes start back up soon, though, and I'm going to be internship-hunting as well as planning on a big move. I'm still going to try my best to juggle everything so that I can make even more progress on the game! ෆ˙ᵕ˙ෆ

At the end of the day, all of this is a fun little project I've always wanted to do. As a little kid, I absolutely loved playing VNs (and I still do!). Creating my own game felt like an unreachable goal, but with enough effort, I think it's something obtainable ෆ˙ᵕ˙ෆ I really just want to create something that others can enjoy!

As a side note, I have some plans to create a little blog (not even sure if it's considered a blog, haha) about the games I've played/want to play! That will be coming very soon!

Thank you to anyone who read this far! You have my eternal gratitude <3

~ bliss ෆ˙ᵕ˙ෆ