#just so you know I really do truly hate myself for this

[shepherds-of-haven]

Happy New Year's Eve, everyone! I hope you all are having a wonderful end to 2024. I just wanted to take a moment to reflect on all the progress that's been made on the game this year!

I added 182,000 words to the game this year; that's about a 25% increase from last year (even though I was juggling even more stuff lol) and is about the equivalent of writing The Fellowship of the Ring, Jane Eyre, or Great Expectations over the course of one year! This included the completion of Chapter 9 as well as 14 character interludes!

However, that wasn't all; I also wrote about 55,000 words for the Shepherd short stories on Patreon (bringing the total wordcount of our short story library to somewhere around 440,000 words), and I also started work on my second novel manuscript in earnest sometime in July. Somehow—miraculously—I added 81,000 words to that, working mostly night or "double" shifts, all in the last few months! All told, I wrote something like 318,000 words this year, and of course that doesn't include coding, programming, design, art or music, marketing, answering asks and making posts, and all of the other little tasks and behind-the-scenes stuff I do either for the game, Patreon, or for my job on the author side of things!

We accomplished a lot of other things this year, including completing the second volume of Ivan Duch's original soundtrack for the game, the creation of more art assets, and cranking out more goodies, merch, and codex entries than ever! As ever, much of the stuff I've done has to continue to cook in the background before I want to officially make it all public, but I'm quite pleased with where everything is going and happy that we're slowly inching closer and closer to the game's initial completion!

I also thought it would be fun to take a look back at how you guys have been playing Shepherds of Haven so far! Through our polls, we've learned a lot about your guys' decisions so far, and I hope to resume this series in 2025. You can click the polls link to see the results and data breakdowns in more detail, though of course, this will always be my favorite series of polls! 😉

Finally, I thought it might be useful to post a (possibly needlessly confusing) roadmap of where I hope to go with the game as we head into 2025. Up first, of course, are the remaining character interludes I need to write until everyone's caught up to the Ascendancy Festival, which I'm sure you've all inferred is an important event in the game. After the Ascendancy Festival is complete, we may either continue in a linear sequence, completing the character interludes that occur after the festival, then Lovelace Day, then the interludes after that, and then proceed with Chapter 10 with all characters truly "caught up"... or we may take a shortcut and start Chapter 10 after the Ascendancy Festival is (at least starting to feel) complete. I don't really know how I'll feel yet—I could be sick to death of the interludes by then and may need a break—so I'm leaving room for flexibility for myself while giving you guys a loose picture, in broad strokes, of what the current plan looks like!

And with that, that's all I have for you today! 2024 was its own year of emotional twists and turns. A lot of exciting things happened: I got engaged! I started work on my new book and I don't hate it! We creep ever close to Chase ruining his lovers' lives a lot of revelations and epiphanies for our stalwart Shepherds! But it was also, of course, a year fraught with its own difficulties and challenges as well. Looking back, I want to emphasize how much navigating this journey has been impacted and influenced by this wonderful, positive community. As ever, I can only thank you all for your kindness, encouragement, patience, empathy, patronage, and support as I've continued to learn, grow, and challenge myself as a game maker and creator. So much of this couldn't be possible without you! And with a swell of relief and hope, I can now note that we are slowly chugging along here, and perhaps the haziest impression of a finish line is finally beginning to appear as a smudge on the horizon...

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this session of Shepherds of Haven Wrapped! Happy New Year, and see you on the other side of 2025—may it be a year filled with continued growth, excitement, and creation! 🎊

[oswildin]

I do not typically post these things either, nor did I ever wish to. I generally prefer to keep to myself and keep my blog focused on my interests & trying to spread positivity. However, after sitting on this decision, I cannot stay idle and not publicly show support to the blogs who I have been mutuals with for quite some time. Enough is enough.

I want to say that my mutuals who have shared their stories have given me no reason to believe they are lying or doing this for attention, they have shared their proof publicly and I have never witnessed or been on the receiving end of any kind of “drama” or inappropriate/offensive behaviour from them in my time on tumblr. I did not know the full extent of the situation until the last month or so due to the previous posts made by my mutuals regarding it and the fact I have this individuals account blocked since its creation. I am also not apart of any ‘inner circles’ or the rp community.

I now know the extent of the situation from the multiple posts made by others, and quite frankly, it is absolutely horrible. I had a brief interaction with this individual because I had them blocked (from the first day they made their acc) and they weren’t happy about that despite the fact we have never interacted or even know each other, but it truly was nothing compared to these accounts.

To those who have shared their experiences, you are very brave and I take my hat off to you. I am sending you all love and strength for 2025, and I truly hope this winds down for you all.

A reminder to everyone when it comes to these situations:

Please do not send hate to anyone involved. Tit for tat is not helpful, displaying the same accused behaviour as this individual is not helpful. I understand the anger and frustration, and those feelings are valid, but it really just adds fuel to the fire.

Please remember the block button is there to protect your own space & your mental health. Blocking someone isn’t always a personal attack. And a reminder that fan spaces are a safe space for a lot of people, try your hardest to keep it that way.

And please remember to respect all parties pronouns & mental health /gen.

(This is the only post I will make regarding this unless I feel it necessary to add to. Please don’t reach out to me regarding my own experience, I’m merely sharing to spread awareness and show support to those who have come forward.💚 thank you.)

A Warning To Marvel Roleplayers;

Mass manipulation comes in many forms, like a wolf stalking pray through a crowd of nice, nice sheep. One specifically has made it their mission to ruin people's lives in the name of jealousy, otherwise known as Asgards-Trickster-God (as well as manifest-your-destiny, and countless other alt accounts, as you've probably seen). Slithering from writing group to writing group once people figure out that all the harassment they've been receiving has been from their own writing partner. These innocent people don't deserve the constant harassment, don't deserve to be obsessed over by a person who barely crosses their mind.

The following is chock-full of evidence (not edited, in case LLD wants to play). I've also added a different callout post made by a different group a little while back, they've truly been at this for a way too long now.

Please stay safe, folks!

[iloveyoutodeathbutimdrowning]

so i think this might have been top three, if not top one, worst years of my life; and while i still don’t see a light at the end of the tunnel, as i’m still concerningly depressed and consistently declining (my therapist just quit her job so now i have to start all over w someone new AND my psychiatrist wants me to take 6 wks off work to do iop dbt so that’s fun), i’ve managed to conjure up some teeny tiny shreds of hope that next year will be even slightly better

i don’t drink much bc i really hate the taste of alcohol lmao so i probably won’t be drinking tonight and i’ll probably be in bed asleep when the ball drops

but i wanted to say thank you to all of you, who have been so so kind to me since i decided to join our little tumblr community. you guys have provided comfort to me in some really really dark times (and i literally suck so much at responding to people so i apologize for that and rest assured, its one of my resolutions lolol), and even in the not so dark times when i get one of those cute ask trends (the ones where its a cute message and then you send it to your favorite blogs too, y’all know what i’m talking abt) in my inbox bc truly i love them sm 🥺. they make my day every single time i see one, even if i don’t respond to it right away

happy new years everyone🍾🎊 hopefully this next year is better for all of us, even if this year wasn’t all that bad for you

(also even though i quite literally just admitted to being terrible at responding ((again so sorry)), send me messages bc i love this little community and i want to talk to more of you guys and be lil friends bc y’all seem so fucking sick and cool as shit and i promise i’ll try so hard to respond better stg but also pls have some grace if i don’t sometimes bc sometimes i don’t have the mental capacity to formulate any kind of sentence or response in any way but stg i’ll try my best😭)

(also also thank you to every single person who puts any kind of time and effort into writing any and all of the fics that are out there ((check out my fic recs for all of my favs (((i’m a smut whore if no one could tell😅))) )). genuinely and sincerely those get me through every day of my life ((esp when i reread my absolute favs in the entire world)) and i love to see all of your different writing styles. i’m so looking forward to whatever different directions you all go in with your writing and ideas. cheers to y’all for making my life a whole lot more bearable lmao🥂)

edit: i’ve decided i’m forcing myself to stay up until midnight so that i can ring in the new year listening to miracle (specifically the “i wanted to dress a blade up in red w both of our necks…” part🥹) yk to drum up good vibes for the new year. upward and onwards everyone🤝🏻

[ink-and-dagger]

At least we can always count on @chickenparm to make our day a little worse. You're my forever inspiration bby 🖤

The Sphincter of Zaun

Silco x Reader || Crack-fic || Farting to assert dominance

You knew pinto beans for lunch was a bad idea.

And as is the way of the universe; the consequences of such terrible decisions always catch up with you eventually. The repercussions of your delicious but risky mid-day meal arrive in the form of a gurgle in the depths of your stomach.

You shift in your seat upon the red sofa and shoot a surreptitious glance over towards the desk, but the Eye of Zaun is far too engrossed in his ledgers to notice your digestive distress. Thank Janna.

You exhale in muted relief.

But for the second time today, your decision making is poor. You should know better than to relax when trapped pockets of bean gas are wreaking havoc on your bowels.

It's hardly an impressive fart, (with concentrated effort, you're able to replicate the splendour of a Jim Morrison scream), but in the quiet office it feels earth-shattering. You squeeze your asscheeks together in a desperate attempt to put an end to this pinto-fuelled nightmare, but it only causes your flatulence to rise drastically in pitch – tapering off in a soprano trill until it's punctuated by a final pitiful squeak.

Silco's gaze rises from his paperwork, painfully slowly, to meet yours. And all you can do is stare right back. Wide-eyed and mortified. You can't even bring yourself to breathe. (Mainly because you don't want him to think you're checking out your own handiwork).

"Rather uncouth, don't you think?"

Silco's deadpan drawl only increases your desire for immediate death. You've a sudden urge to crawl through the Undercity in search of an even deeper fissure to slink down into, like a roach fleeing the sunlight.

Embarrassed beyond comprehension, and desperately attempting to stay put in your seat despite the adrenaline urge to flee – you reach instead for your go-to defence mechanism. Humour.

Too bad that you aren't actually very funny.

"What's the matter? Jealous? Bet you can't manage more than a dusty little waft with that sorry tortilla tuchus of yours."

The world falls into complete and utter silence, other than the razor sching of Silco's gaze honing to a lethal sharpness. He rises slowly from his chair, and his gold-tipped boots click an unhurried, ominous tempo as he rounds the desk.

An absent part of you prays that the smell of your fart has dissipated. But you're mostly captured by the sheer magnetic power of the man stalking towards you, and the heat that pools in your lower belly now has very little to do with pinto beans.

Silco arrives in front of you; severe, lean, and looming. The cast of his shadow lengthens as he bends closer, resting a hand on the back of the sofa beside your shoulder, and harshly capturing your jaw with the other.

Your heart lodges in your throat at the penetrating intensity of his dual-eyes drilling into yours. You couldn't look away even if you wanted to. His fingers dig into your skin as the silence stretches.

Minutes or moments pass, until it finally seems as though he might speak. Diaphragm shifting slightly beneath his gilded waistcoat, mouth tensing as though in preparation to form words. But none come.

Instead, Silco lets rip the nastiest, foulest, ass aria that you could ever imagine. Your hair lifts away from your face, and flaps in the gale-force blast of his deathly, harmonic expulsion – all at once the most beautiful and horrifying thing you've ever heard, like a thousand screaming angels. The paintings on the office wall rattle in their frames at the sheer magnitude of his digestive capabilities, at least a 6 on the Richter scale. And your eyes water both in sheer awe of his unbridled dominance, but also at the tidal-wave stench that hits you; cigar ashes, loca mocha java monster energy drink, and kalamata olives.

With a final push that momentarily strains the scarred trenches upon his face, he concludes his transcendent fart in a blaze of fervid, vibrato glory.

Silence once more falls to blanket the room, and you blink up at him. Lashes heavy with awe-stricken tears, and mouth hanging agape.

Silco leans closer, and his gaze is as hot as the sparks you swore you saw shooting out of his ass.

"Do not ever underestimate me again."

[bunnyboy-juice]

spent the first hour and change at work deleting some old files and am having a grand ol time laughing at myself for not realizing i was a lesbian sooner

[pickled-flowers]

Every time I go to a party I'm reminded that it's not that I can't interact with people, it's just not a desire I have :(

[godsfavoritescientist]

Biting the bars of my enclosure about autistic ford tonight. There's something about him using vocabulary and turns of phrase that seem "outdated" or "pretentious" that feels so painfully genuine to me. When people say he talks like that just to "try to sound smart" I wish I could explain what it's like to be so ostracized from your peers growing up that you spend all your time reading instead, to the point where you pick up your way of speaking from books instead of from people. And then what it's like for people to call you out for "talking weird" over and over again, not able to wrap their heads around why the fuck you would choose more archaic or technical or formal words than the simpler ones that surely come to everyone's minds first. What it's like to have to dedicate a sizable chunk of attention to filtering through every single word you say out loud in real time before you say it, to make absolutely sure that it isn't a word people will judge you for using or make fun of you for using, just so you'll have a chance of being taken seriously. Learning through trial and error how to filter out the words that other people don't think are normal or casual enough for the conversation, even though for you, the word choice that's "natural-sounding" enough for them is the third or fourth word you came up with when searching for the right way to phrase something in your head. I wish I could explain just how long it takes to say fucking anything after spending a lifetime doing that during every single conversation, and how repetitive and long-winded you end up being when you spend so long coming up with alternative ways of saying every little thing you ever think. And I wish people realized that, at the very least for autistic people and autistic-coded characters, speech that's seen as pretentious is really just the way they talk when they're not putting in the extra effort to filter through every word they say just so others will take the time to listen.

[an-theduckin]

Wait shit people might actually care about me

[thehardkandy]

I have now made it to six weeks, I think, of my daily mini workouts. Unfortunately doing it this consistently has in fact not made it any easier in the slightest. In honesty, it is harder because I do not have the momentum of the initial change. I am still going though

In reality too I probably have 2-3 weeks left at most that I will do, because after that I will no longer be home alone in the apartment. Still will have been worth doing I hope, so that I can do it easier when I eventually have the space long term

[dragoninahumancostume]

My favorite part of being alive is that I've never felt welcome in any space except for that one year when I thought I was a non-binary bisexual asexual girl when I was 13 :)

[derpinette]

i have a weird relationship with weight because i hated eating more than anything the moment i was ready for solids ( i hate chewing with my entire life always have & will ) which made me underweight for most of my life ( to this day ) & during late primary-middle school this made me actively suicidal because i felt like something was wrong with my sex because i just was not developing whatsoever prompting me to have a years long phase of trying to gain weight in any way i could ( #EPICFAIL by the way ) & i was already insecure but i felt seriously so unforgivably ugly after bullying not just at school but by adults of my entourage. but then i did in my late 15s which prompted the pendulum to swing in the other direction & suddenly i FREAKED OUT & thought well being skinny is pretty much all i have & know myself to be & clearly it is not going to last forever so i Better preserve it i was delusional about how skinny i thought i was actually i look stumpy & weird i have to prove myself. But now i am normal again kind of

[skillzissuez]

Depression is all fun and games until your skipping school even though you’re weeks behind because you quite literally can’t get out of bed

[snekdood]

Your impulse to believe every last bad thing people say about a guy and then if that guy is victimized by those people or the people who spread the rumors you dont even try to look into if thats even the case, you just assume hes bad by default-- yeah thats incredibly unfair to guys who are victims of abuse.

[abimee]

For what it's worth, I've been following you for a few years and I do think your skills as an artist have grown. You've seem to get more confident in the way you build the human body and face, your coloring has gotten more complex, and in general I feel like I've watched you settle more and more into a defined and unique art style.

I know it can be frustrating to not see the growth or changes you want but it does break my heart to see you be so harsh on yourself. I think you're genuinely extremely skilled and I always looked up to you as an artist, even when I was going through art school myself. I feel like you have a way of capturing people that's just so emotional and lovely and I want to see more of it in my own art, though I've been struggling to capture the same vibes too...

It's also never too late to pick up or try out something new, to find new skills or return to old ones. I loved the fics you posted, your prose is wonderful, and the way you speak about your characters is so thoughtful. It does hurt to feel like you've lost out on the time to do something, but please don't give up completely. I think you have a lot of genuine skill and talent and it'd be lovely to see you take it in any direction. Regardless of where the future takes you, I hope you have a nice day.

THANK YOU.... THAT MEANS A LOT TO ME TO HEAR.....

ive been like, trying to mull it over in my head because sometimes what i think is one way might sometimes morph into another and idk i dont think its its a dislike for my own art but like a sort of external critic ive decided to consume thats trying to sway me one way. i hate to be like ''the support i got on my art when i was younger was sort of really bad for me'' but maybe the years of being pushed To be an artist by adults and people around me saying they like my art only when its X or Y thing has like made me prey to feeling like im drawing not for myself. like i failed the expectations put on me and i dont have the chance to ''re-do''

maybe i just need to like reconsider what i like drawing or try smthn new that isnt like. hinged on this idea in my head that i need to keep peoples attention or what support i have because like. thats another fear is always like ''what if all these people who say they like my art one day just stop and im left alone'' but thats a different plate of cookies for a different glass of milk. i think i just need to figure out what I personally want out of my art and stop hinging everything on years-old circumstances

but then at the same time i dont really have any idea what i would want to do differently, i really like what i draw now but idk maybe theres something else for me in some way. i think im worried of just alienating people so used to one thing from me that changing that will just feel wrong. not really in like art style or anything but just like What i draw. i feel like ive always kept to the same concepts and ideas and imagrey that changing it will be strange or worse. but maybe i do just have to make that chance and not be so scared 😞

[culmaer-sideblog]

please forgive me, but I need to complain and over-share or my brain is going to explode please feel free to ignore

[twinknote]

ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha i think i'm going to go. Actually insane

my brother's gf's parents just put in an offer on a house for them today and it was accepted! and anyone who is not deeply mentally ill and traumatized and disabled and stuck living with their shitty fucking parents in their shitty fucking moldy decrepit hoarder's house would be happy for them! and i'm Soooooooo not! i fear i need to be kept 1,000 feet away from their happy celebratory housewarming shit bc it makes me want to kill everyone and then myself! like my mom texted me that they got the house and i immediately just started having a mental fucking breakdown and laughing and crying hysterically!!!!!!!!

like wow that's awesome!!!!! that's so awesome that you have rich parents who can just. randomly decide to buy you a house!!!!! that's so cool and good for you!!!! it would be so cool if my parents even had a decent house that isn't full of mold and bugs and mice and probably asbestos and has no usable dining or living room because they're piled with random fucking shit!!!! it would be so cool if some evil rotting smell didn't waft through the vents regularly!!!! it would be so cool if they were functional and capable of cleaning!!!!! it would be so cool if they were able or willing to help me live literally anywhere else, or GOD forbid realize that maybe living here isn't good for me!!!! that would be SO awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

but it's So cool that your parents bought you a 3 bedroom house on a whim 👍 it's so cool that my brother gets to live there without having to go through any of the barriers that come with buying a house. it's so cool that people are just able to make money and live in safe and comfortable places and both of those things feel entirely impossible for me to the point where i truly just feel like i'm not meant to be happy or even just safe and sane. it's so cool that people just magically get their basic needs met and i'm just over here like ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha i'll never have that! that's awesome 👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍