This update, kicking off Act 2 Volume 2 is perfectly on time, but that's only because I've had it done and uploaded since finishing the last one. The next updates might not be so lucky!
The last several weeks have been hectic. I'll spare you the grislier details, but if you'd like a run-down, consider reading the following in the voice of Sam Reich introducing you as a contestant on Make Some Noise, and then pantomiming each action as you walk to your podium.
- The sudden passing of a beloved pet, it's...!
- The temporary hospitalization of my father, it's...!
- Calling an HVAC technician to service my air conditioner, it's...!
- The purchase and installation of a replacement air conditioner, it's...!
- Calling an electrician to replace an outlet since the new AC blew fuses, it's...!
- The simultaneous failure of both the hard drive with my art on it, and the second hard drive I keep that first hard drive backed up to, it's...!
It's this last one which impacts comics making the most, obviously. A lot of what I lost is stuff I can't perfectly replace but also lean heavily on: raw panel files, Adobe Animate projects, layered version of sprite mode rooms, animatics for future [S] pages, concept art, and writing. A decent amount of writing remains in drafts on my phone and in cloud storage, certain art assets like the post-timeskip sprites remain in Clip Studio Paint's material catalogue, code remains in Github remote sources, it can all be rebuilt, but that'll take some time, and well, it's tough, man. It's tough.
Basically everything after the pandemic started is gone. Atop everything else, a lot of projects I had but just never had enough to start posting are gone. In the most recent update, Dirk mentions a version of the Grimoire for the Summoning of the Zoologically Dubious, that's one of the things gone. So much is just, gone.
I try not to plug the Patreon without something to show, but that essay about update scheduling I had in the works is one of the things gone, too. And well, it's pride month. You can indulge me a little, can't you? The world is tough enough for trans women even when I'm not experiencing a 24-karat run of bad luck.
So I will doff the cap, and do a real call to action, just this once. If you like this comic, or me in general, or Homestuck fanworks, consider donating, or joining as a free member. That's actually not a bad position to be in, since those long-form essays on the Patreon become free a month after they go up, and that's how you can learn about that. I really have been caring for the Patreon a lot recently. It's got this nice kind of relaxed tone, where I can go up there and just shoot the shit about something I've been thinking about while making comics, and people tend to like it. If that's too much commitment, you can check out my Ko-fi for one-off donations.
It's kind of cliche to write, and I'm sure you've heard it before, but BDTH really does survive off crowdfunding like this. It pays to keep servers up, it pays for domains, it pays for stuff that makes this comic pop, and it'll realistically speaking, pay for the replacement of my poor, deceased hard drives.
While pulling from older hard drives to start rebuilding, though, I realized a bit that I first wrote down for BDTH in 2018 finally got an appearance in the most recent animation. Some of the first things I wrote for this comic in 2017, 2018, 2019 will be coming up in this next set of chapters. Things move slowly, ever so slowly, and with no shortage of setbacks, but I am excited nonetheless.
Happy pride.
