22×15

My Etsy is still open and I brought most of the products with me this time. There’s a new original Ruya Pencil sketch for sale. I want to go through my art in storage and find ancient TSE doodles to share on Patreon.

I’m in VA. Been without my insulin pump for a week and my bloodsugar has been miserable while adapting back to shots, but it’s been improving somewhat and I actually slept a few solid hours last night instead of being woken up constantly by swinging bloodsugars.  It is rather exhausting.

Note: Please give me a heads-up if you send any packages to my PO box so that I can arrange for someone to pick them up while I’m traveling.

Featured Comments:

“So Avidan has to get locked up in a tower, grow a beard and long hair AND get put to sleep to get Velvare to pay attention to him? No. That is not fair at all to Avidan. Velvare…. you…. go sit in the corner.” – In-Love-With-A-Pen

“Normally I would roast Ayran for not explaining himself sufficiently (like, maybe if you told people what the root of your problem with Melete is we could have a more productive discussion here) but he is talking to Velvare, King of Not Explaining Things. So maybe he has earned it.” – Kaesy

“I heard someone else say this theory but I also agree with it and see it happening here, that Ayran’s appearance changes based on people he is in close proximity to. Like in the scene where he first meets the whole novacrew he is right behind Enel and he looks much younger and has reddish hair. And here he has more freckles and curlier hair he looks almost like a young Bay. I could be wrong but I’m pretty sure that’s what’s happening” – Briana

Comments:

I’m reopening comments, with this statement. Please read it before diving into commenting. I’ve been wrestling with this for a few years, so bear with me, and also please don’t take it personally, it’s not aimed at any one individual.

There was a time when this site didn’t have comment guidelines or moderation. Things were laid back. Organically, there was a balance between thoughtfulness and lightheartedness. There were enough comments to unpack the page and story in-depth, but not so many that conversations lost focus or went off-the-rails. I made the Comment Policy in an attempt to maintain that peace as the audience of the comic grew, knowing that if it got too large and too unruly, I might have to distance myself from it. I have been–and am still–trying to postpone that for as long as I can.

I asked for advice on what to do, and the main answer was to get moderators to handle things for me, but I feel too personally connected to this site. I know I’d still end up reading the comments and lamenting that things aren’t how they used to be. They’ve been heading on a trajectory towards hyperness, chaos, irreverence, and superficiality, and if that continues, it may reach a point when I shut them down and just connect with readers through Patreon and other platforms.

This is a trial run to see if I should have comments reopened right now. In the future I’ll also be considering whether having comments on this site at all is sustainable. Please follow the guidelines here. Please take off-topic discussions to other platforms. Please focus on quality over quantity. 

Since that is rather subjective, these are additions and/or reinforcements to the guidelines that are more concrete:

  • No short comments that don’t contribute to the discussion, for example, “lol” “XD” “So true!” “Fanks” ect. If at all possible, use the upvote to affirm other comments instead.
  • No all-caps comments or comments that are just screams. Disqus sends a lot of these directly to spam, which can hurt your account’s reputation, but even if they don’t go to spam, it’s unnecessarily hyper.
  • No more “First!” or “AREN’T PIGEONDOVES TULIPS” comments. I know they’re made with good intentions, the thing is, I see the hits this site gets on Friday. I know thousands of people are clicking refresh when I am struggling to get a page finished. These are just reminders of that—they don’t contribute to conversations, and they do contribute to putting pressure on me.
  • You ARE allowed to post hi-res images on the fanart page and the meme page.
  • Do NOT post large images on any pages other than the fanart and meme pages. You can do a search and find an app or program that can scale images. They should not be more than 600 pixels. If you don’t know how to resize images, please refrain from posting images at all. If you only notice a picture is very large after you’ve posted, then delete your comment and make a new one after the image has been shrunk.
  • Don’t comment with screencaps of pages, especially under the page you’re talking about. Just describe the page and/or panel numbers of where you want others to look.
  • No more thirsty-posting. I know a number of you found this story through a series where characters being very ‘hot’ is a big part of both the marketing and the fandom, however, that’s not an attitude I wish to cultivate on this site. I’ve been seeing an increase of comments of an objectifying nature. If you must declare a character looks attractive, please at least do so with some creativity and sophistication. Otherwise, you can express that elsewhere, or keep it to yourself.
  • (As an aside, there are hints of people trying to pair off everyone, but in general, I would like to thank readers for not being overly ship-crazed. That is something I still really appreciate)
  • There is a misunderstanding regarding links. DO break YouTube/video links so that Disqus doesn’t automatically embed videos. DO NOT break other links. If a comment with a link goes to pending, just be patient until a mod approves it. That’s okay, it’s to protect people from fishy sites.
  • This is a temporary ban on “XD”s. I held a fondness for “XD” before I read 500+ of them in December. The readership has surpassed its allotted amount of “XD”s and they will now be treated as an invasive species. I will let you know when they can be slowly re-introduced into the habitat.
  • If a comment wrongly winds up in pending land, it is okay to leave a comment saying so in order to bring it to a mod’s attention. Please do that and give mods time to approve it instead of posting duplicate comments. (This especially applies to long comments it took you a while to type out.)

If things go very well in the next couple weeks, I’ll leave comments open for the time being. If they go poorly, I’ll close them again temporarily. If things go well but one or two commenters are having trouble following guidelines, I’ll address that individually.

I’m going to start featuring 1-3 comments or excerpts from comments in the blog post for each page. It will highlight exemplary comments that are very insightful, deep, witty, or high-quality. (Update: I really wish I could keep up with featuring comments, but updating the comic takes all my time and energy sometimes)

You can help create an atmosphere that encourages discussion which is thought out, meaningful, and full of substance. That would make for a much more enjoyable experience for all. You won’t only be helping me get through a hard time in real life, but also helping me continue hosting comments on this site in the long term.