CHRIST so replies decided to break so it took me forever but A) Aw jeez thanks a lot! and B) I’m glad I didn’t bug you or make you feel bad, thanks for telling me 😀 I swung towards feeling like a jerk pretty fast on that one
I have known Momo ( @alotofmomos ) for years, and he has been nothing but kind, supportive, and empathetic. Last year, we met for the first time, and he pushed my wheelchair when I was too weak to walk. And as he learned, being in a wheelchair is much harder than it looks.
After witnessing first hand the struggles that disabled people go through on a daily basis, Momo, an engineering student, decided to take action. He researched his university and made one of the most important projects for his degree entirely about accessibility. After doing extensive research and asking for my input, he created a comprehensive plan to make life better for students on his campus. This was much to the dismay of staff members who defensively insisted that bare minimum ADA compliance was more than what disabled people deserved. They told Momo that his project was useless and laughed at him.
But he stood his ground anyway. He risked his grade and his entire degree on what we had experienced together and on the stories I shared of my own struggles with accessibility. He risked his freaking future to try and make life better for people like me, and to assert that not enough is being done.
But he needs your help. Due to unfortunate circumstances, it costs Momo $20 each way to get to his new internship. $40 a day. He is trying to find alternative options, but right now has to give up food to make it to work. Not only that, he does not have enough to pay for doctors to fix some painful medical issues. A paycheck would pay for the transportation at least, but his first paycheck is in a month.
In short: My good friend Momo, a disability rights advocate and all around amazing friend needs help. And honestly he deserves all the help he can get. If you can, please support him!
Even if the transportation gets figured out, he still needs help paying for food and medicine!
Ko-Fi is a platform that allows people to donate money in small increments known as “coffees”.
Each “coffee” donation is $3. You can give as little or as many coffees as you like. Ko-Fi accepts card and PayPal!
Thank you so much for reading. Please help me help Momo so he can continue help others!
Heya guys, Momo/Blues is pretty much one of my oldest and best friends in the world. It would seriously mean the world to me if you could signal boost this, because he could really use help and this is pretty much all I can do for now.
Yeah and tbf a friend just gave me some p good reasons why it’s honestly a good thing, like minutes after reblogging that cause we started talking about it.
I hope I didn’t come off jerkish in that reblog, I’ve just gotten kinda knee-jerk about mischaracterizations of Jake because they manifest in so many worse ways than something like british Jake. Which are also pretty much universally accepted. Which is why I try to voice contrasting views when I come across them. Feel free to let me know if that rubbed you the wrong way and I’m happy to delete or edit it cause yeah it’s not really a big deal?
But yeah sorry I was bein a jerk, nothin wrong with british jake hcs. I’m just too used to talking about Jake in canon for my own good.
Why is the popular headcanon for a British person is that they like tea?
To spice things up a little Imma headcanon:
Jake English fucking hates tea
I’ll spice things up more:
Jake hates tea because when Jake was small he ate an entire tea leaf right off one of his Grandma’s plants and it was super strong and his tongue was burning.
Jake isn’t even English/British, that’s not what his slang is…Calliope’s affect is described that way by both Jake and Dirk, but Jake’s never is. it’s pure fanon. Jake uses like, old-timey American slang and lots of swearing.
Karkat: his marshmallow is engulfed in flames. dave keeps telling him to take it out. this only makes him more stubborn. shut up I’m doing this my own way. he has created charcoal. it is disgusting. he’ll eat it anyway because dave will make fun of him if he doesnt. dave makes fun of him for eating it. he cannot win
Dave: he keeps making his marshmallow touch other marshmallows. except karkat’s because it is on fire. everyone regards this with benign amusement except john who keeps telling him to knock it off you damn doofus you are going to knock them off into the fire. challenge accepted. they are passive aggressively trying to knock each other’s marshmallows into the fire. in an inexplicable turn of events roxy wins. they didn’t even realize she was trying. dave blames john. john blames dave. roxy feels bad and makes them both perfect s’mores after. they accept this, begrudgingly. roxy sits between them. she puts her arms around the both of them. leans forward and innocently asks if there are any other challengers. no one accepts
Dirk: perfectly roasts his marshmallow. burns his hands pulling it off the stick. pretends that this didnt happen. is annoyed by how it is impossible to eat a smore without getting marshmallow shit all over his face. no one look at me. fuck, everyone is looking. rose is raising her eyebrows at him. jake is grinning at him. just eat it. come on
Jake: bets karkat he can eat more of them than he can. they lose track of who is winning somewhere around number nine. karkat accuses him of cheating b/c hes breaking off the graham cracker pieces outside the lines so his are smaller. jake calls him a whiny soft gut wiggler. karkat mashes a half melted marshmallow into jakes hair. they eat six more each and then bond over a mutual inability to endure even a whiff of the scent of marshmallow or chocolate without gagging for months thereafter
Rose: likes her marshmallows slightly burnt. makes fun of dave for barely toasting his. dave scoffs at her. you just like ur marshmallows the way you like your soul, black and shriveled. rose grins. why thank u dave. youre so sweet. she makes aggressive eye contact as she consumes half the smore in one bite. graham cracker and marshmallow go everywhere. god damn smores and their notorious structural instability. dave and roxy snort when they laugh. rose wipes her face with a paper napkin, balls it up and throws it at them. at least my marshmallows are warm inside. yours are cold & nasty and that’s the facts
Kanaya: doesnt super get it b/c lets face it sweets are kind of ???? when you’re a vampire who constantly craves the coppery taste of questionable liquid sustenance. she eats four anyway because it seems to be The Thing. It’s actually not the worst thing in the world. she slowly collects all the dark chocolate. these are mine. jane asks where tf the dark chocolate bars all went. kanaya looks up, a half melted marshmallow speared on her fangs, sucking the melty fluff out of the middle. it was definitely not me, she says, around a mouthful. uh. yes of course not, jane agrees. she sits back down. her eyes are v. wide. no one questions it again. kanaya privately delights at her good fortune. her story is rock solid and no one suspects her at all and now all these delicious bitter bars are hers and also half rose’s because she’s pretty sure that’s how human marriage works ?? ? ..?
Roxy: puts 7 marshmallows on a stick and creates a toasted gradient. eats the marshmallows directly off the stick. dirk informs her the noises shes making as she does this are borderline obscene. please stop. roxy makes aggressive eye contact as she eats the next one in line like a fuckin marshmallow corncob. dirk throws a marshmallow bag at her. roxy asks him if the marshmallow stick hes using has any relation to the one lodged up his ass. jake chokes on his 14th smore. jane apologizes on their behalf to everyone else present. roxy queues another 7 marshmallows, smirking
Callie: collects one (1) smore from everyone b/c she wants to try out everyones styles. she compliments them all effusively but secretly likes jane’s the best. she cant believe shes finally found this, a sweet that she can also roast mercilessly over an open flame. truly these are gods gift to cherubs. she eats them steadily with no sign of stopping. ppl begin to notice. they become concerned. they are running out of marshmallows. callie. callie we had like ten times as many bags as any reasonable group of people could ever hope to go through in one sitting. what is happening. callie waves them off. she’s still crunching away. she is Content
Happy Wednesday, Hiveswap and Homestuck fans! Ash here once again, and I come bearing – you guessed it – another behind-the-scenes interview with one of the illustrious folks working hard to make Hiveswap everything you’re expecting and more!
Our interviewee this week is Anastasia, Hiveswap’s technical artist and one of the coding warriors on our awesome programming team! So without further ado, let’s get this show on the road…
Introduce yourself to the fans! What is your specific role on the Hiveswap team?
Hi all, my name is Anastasia Kinzel and I am a technical artist on the project.
Technical artists tend to fit right in-between programmers and artists. We have a combination of artistic and technical ability and work in-between the two disciplines to make everyone’s job simpler. Creating tools and interpreting needs from the programming and art teams are big parts of technical art!
So on Hiveswap specifically, I have been working with the artists – who typically don’t work with Unity or dabble in the programming side of things – to show them why or how things can or can’t work from a technical standpoint.
I also serve as a liaison between the artists and programmers in that I’m able to interpret what one side says and “translate” it in a way that makes logical sense to the other side. For example, when an artist says something like “That looks funny,” I know that what they actually mean is that the interaction seems off to them because the sprite has the wrong dimensions, and I relay that interpreted information to the programming side.
Basically, it’s half programmer and half artist!
(A lot of what I have been doing involves implementing all of our cool art and animations into the game itself. Some scenes have quite a few animations, and they’re really fun. In some cases I’ve gotten to implement the art for entire scenes all on my own, and those scenes have sort of become my favorite. – Anastasia)
When and how did you get your start on the Hiveswap project?
I started on Hiveswap sort of by happenstance really, but quickly became enthralled with the lore and how great the team is.
Tell us a little bit about your career background! How did you get your start in technical art? Do you have any advice for others looking to enter this field?
I actually started my career as an artist. I ended up discovering an aptitude and passion for the technical side of things, though, and now I get to help artists implement and create game assets more efficiently! My advice for someone looking to get into the industry, or into technical art, is to try everything; eventually you will find something that’s fun and challenging, and then you can focus your effort on that.
We’re making a video game, so of course the question must be asked: what’s your favorite game of all time, and what games are you playing currently (if any)?
I love games with a ton of story, so I can’t pick just one… I would have to say my three favorite games are The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, The Witcher 3, and Fable II. Currently I am playing quite a few Oculus Rift games and a lot of Heroes of the Storm.
Are there any games that you currently use or have used as inspiration for your own technical art and programming work here on Hiveswap, or just in general?
Most RPGs give me a lot of inspiration. Oftentimes, as I play a game I’ll find myself thinking about concepts and features I wish it had, and I’ll prototype those elements out in my personal game projects.
(The first screenshot shows how the game’s user interface [UI] looked for a long time. It was functional, but not polished yet. Recently the UI designer prepared a new, more polished interface – which you can see in the second screenshot –and I was able to implement that into Unity, which gave the whole game a much cleaner feel. – Anastasia)
Imagine you’ve been given an unlimited budget and time frame to make your dream game. Tell us (briefly!) about that game in terms of genre, style, platforms, etc. Is it an original game or a long-desired sequel to an existing game? Go crazy!
Honestly, being a huge Lord of the Rings nerd, I would love a really complex, in-depth, amazingly well-rendered, accurate LotR game. I’d like to have a “story” where you played through The Hobbit and LotR and then an open world aspect where you could create your own character and forge your own experiences. Imagine World of Warcraft, but with Lord of the Rings’ mythos, world, and characters!
What’s your workstation like? Do you like to listen to any particular kinds of music while you work? If so, tell us about it!
My workstation is actually pretty tidy. I currently have flowers on my desk, which I really enjoy. I listen to a lot of instrumental music while programming.
Favorite Homestuck character?
Rose.
Favorite Homestuck ship?
Oh gosh, I try not to get too swept up in all that!
Favorite Homestuck flash?
There are too many to choose from, but probably one of the weirder ones.
Do you have a personal message you’d like to relay to all the Homestuck and Hiveswap fans out there?
Thanks for being such a passionate community, and we can’t wait to share all our hard work with you!
Where can people find more of your work? Link us to your own little corner(s) of the Internet!
You can find my personal website and portfolio right here!
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And there you have it: the life, trials, and tribulations of a Hiveswap technical artist, straight from the source! Thank you, Anastasia!
Since Anastasia was kind enough to spotlight Hiveswap’sUI and the evolution it has undergone over the course of the project, next week we’re going to bring you an interview with Tauhid Bondia, the graphic designer and artist who created that very UI (and plenty else, but I’ll let him tell you about that). Something to look forward to!
Flying through Storytelling 