Zodiacstuck

Tumblr page of Zodiacstuck, a Fanventure by Sandentwins. Here you can find explanations, worldbuilding, character information, and side stories.

[bellaexclamation]

y'all heard of gender

[autizta]

My social anxiety has been terrible and I just didn’t manage to bring this to my main but please look at this I made it during 3d class

[zodiacstucked]

The youngest players and their God Tiers.

Blatty - Rogue of Time - Bumblebee

Carnos - Page of Mind - Tiger Moth

Cabela - Seer of Hope - Scarab Beetle

Ratter - Mage of Breath - Monarch Butterfly

[zodiacstucked]

The rest of the trolls, because why not? 

[zodiacstucked]

More redesigns, where I try to give everyone some unique characteristics.

[zodiacstucked]

Felt like doodling these two, for no real reason. 

They’ve grown so much...

[zodiacstucked]

The Goodbye to End it All

My, would you look at this. Zodiacstuck is seven years old today!   Memories, memories. So much thing I'd like to say, so little time. I wish I could say I have an update ready. I even pulled out my tablet and everything. But when trying to draw a panel, I just. I didn't have any single clue of where to go from there on. I had a lot of ideas and potential for Zodiacstuck. Plot twists, character arcs, cool and fancy things planned. But it was a hastily-started project, with no coherency whatsoever, and a very noobish feel to it that even a reboot couldn't save. And now I'm here trying to build a story from that, and have it go somewhere. Which, I won't try to hide, isn't what I need right now. I had a lot of fun doing Zodiacstuck over the past few years. A great chunk of my art improvement came from there. Reading it you can still see the evolution of my style, and my way to write as well. And it still remains one of my little darlings. But now is another time. Now, I'm busy with college, with other fandoms, with projects of a whole other scale. Homestuck isn't my special interest anymore, and I've grown disconnected with the story. I just don't feel the same spark anymore. So I think that now the time has come to discontinue Zodiacstuck altogether. I won't try to shine the promise of potential updates in front of you, nor do I expect you to keep following it. I'm aware that my fanbase has grown very thin over the past years, and nothing I can do will make you come back. But it's okay. It was fun while it lasted, and I had a lot of fun meeting people interested in my story and art, who eventually pushed me to get better. So thank you everyone who followed the ride at any point, thank you for your support and encouragement, and thank you for doing this with me all these years. Keep on zodiacin', everyone.

[zodiacstucked]

Zodiacstuck - Lomena Nogard by CarmineKanzer

[zodiacstucked]

About Zodiacstuck

I don't know what to do of it anymore. It's too big of a project and would take too much time away from my other ones. Plus I barely have time anymore with school and whatnot. It's not my priority anymore. The story's too chaotic for me, I don't know what to do with it. I might discontinue it or give it an expedited ending.

[zodiacstucked]

Happy 4th anniversary.

On May 17th, 2013, Zodiacstuck had started. One year ago, I started the maintenance project: re-do all panels that were outdated, and crudely drawn, to better reflect what I wanted to do with this adventure. *I planned to re-do the entirety of Act 1, about a hundred pages. Some pages were already fine as they were, including the latest ones. *I planned to possibly re-draw digitally the paper-drawn panels, which existed as placeholders when I couldn't draw numerically. *I wanted to update dialogue and text to better reflect my vision of the characters. And, where did it end? *I only completed one half of Act 1, including several .gif panels. *The paper panels have been tweaked and re-taken to better the image quality, but no redraw has been done. *Most dialogue has been updated. Re-drawing the entirety of the beginnings of a fanventure is a task I had under-estimated. Since I put so much care in the visual aspect of Zodiacstuck, I didn't want to settle with less-than-best drawing quality, to the point where I had received some critics about how the artstyle was "too dense" and "complex" for a fanventure. I know visuals are only one aspect of the whole thing, but it is the one I wanted to change before all, so new readers wouldn't be put off by the crude drawings that were the beginnings of Zodiacstuck. Now, I don't know what to do. I didn't complete my goals in the one year I had given myself to do all of these changes. I did what I could, but it left the whole thing looking like a patchwork. I couldn't stand the idea, but it put so much stress on me that I couldn't bring myself to do it. I saw this task as a burden rather than a task I wanted to do. In short, I was imposing myself too much, and this made me unable to reach the bar I had put so high. I have many projects I'm currently working on, and they feel much more inspiring than re-doing Zodiacstuck and spending hours on drawing panels, without making the story progress. I didn't produce new content for it and this is what drove my slight readership away, since no commands have been given in months. Working on Zodiacstuck has become a hassle, a contraint. I'm just re-doing stuff I already did, and it's not going anywhere. That's why I decided to stop. I'll stop re-doing panels. Since people don't care about the quality of the graphics, and most have already been done, I will leave the current panels in place. I will however try to update the dialogues and text as much as I can, so the story has a continuity. I will now try to focus on making new panels and finishing the story once I get commands and inspiration. I hesitate as to whether put Zodiacstuck as 'On Hiatus' or not. I've already taken too much time without working on it. To not leave people with the idea that I'm not doing it anymore, I think I won't touch its status. I hope you understand my concerns. Thank you for following the development of Zodiacstuck.

[pumpkin-bread]

If you are:

too busy to produce content

not mentally or physically up to to producing content

anxious about posting your work, unfinished or otherwise

shy/anxious about interacting with others

that’s okay

you’re not doing anything wrong.

it’s okay.

[zodiacstucked]

Possible return?

I’m not dead, y’know.

But yeah. I did some storyboards for Ryudra’s Escape mini-arc. Given I find time to draw them and flesh out some dialogue, expect retro-updates very soon.

Forumstuck has taken most of my time, along with other projects. But at least I have a clear hindsight of what I need to do fo Z-stuck.

-Cabela’s and Maffen’s naming panels, which are complex .gifs

-Ryudra’s Escape

-and some rogue outdated panels here and there.

More’s to come, stay tuned.

[zodiacstucked]

Surprisingly enough...

...Zodiacstuck is now canon to Forumstuck.

Well, with me leading the project, that would have been true one way or another. But now, I have managed to link the two Fanventures through a genius plot that makes the Galaxy Frog (he universe in which is Sotergan) the same universe as the one which hosts Shaltear, the Stellarians’ planet.

I’m genius.

What are Stellarians, you may ask? Well, I could tell you, but I’d rather show you. After all, it’s a basic rule of storytelling.

[zodiacstucked]

A cute fanart of Maffen and Cabela to cheer you up :)

[zodiacstucked]

Lack of updates?

As you have noticed, I have left Zodiacstuck aside for the past few weeks. That’s because I’m working on Forumstuck right now. It’s a big project that will take most of my time, but rest be assured: I have planned a quick update for Zodiacstuck in the next few days.

Thanks for staying along.

[zodiacstucked]

More news, again

Alright people. From Monday 18th to Friday 22nd, don't expect anything. I'll be taking a week off without my laptop, and I'm not even sure there'll be internet. Now, you might say, "But Carmine! Why bother taking days off if you're not even doing anything right now?". Well to that I can say that I have others projects than Zodiacstuck at the moment (do you know how much time it takes to write a chapter of my Skyrim gay Argonian friends-to-lovers fanfiction?), as well as the fact that I am a lazy fucker. I've passed the "Introduction arc" art milestone and I think it's alright for now. Of course, there are many things that still need polish, but for now they're mostly aesthetic so bear with them. Maybe I'll leave some of the old panels, but that'd be very inconsistent. That's why I need to re-do them all, and that takes time. After the Introduction Arc is what I call "Starting arc", going from Gallia: Reveal plan to End of Act 1, and is about 40 pages long. It includes the beginning of Sgrub and the first appearance of the Yalia. Then is the Intermission, which is paper-panelised and already had text corrections.You know I can't do much about paper panels, except maybe finding a scanner but I don't have one. Then there's another paper arc, simply named "Paper Arc", which goes until Ferren: Go fetch. (and in case you ask, no I'm not going to re-do it. You want to kill me or what? Watch it with subtitles on.) The page right after is the "Past friends arc", starting with Benkan's self-questioning, and then the "Players Arc" which starts with Nibber. Here's my current priority order: Intro Arc: Done Starting Arc: Next on my list. Needs art correction and text modifs. Intermission: Done Paper Arc: Well, not like I can do much more about it. I mean I could, but this would be unnecessary work. Past Friends: Marks the level of what I deem "acceptable". Couple of paperised scenes could be remade. Players: In Progress, temporarily paused. In short, all 46 pages from August 2013 to November 2013 need to be re-done. And that's a lot. Do you need to stop expecting new updates until then? I wouldn't say that. They're not my current priority, that's all. Zodiacstuck won't be put on hiatus, let's just call it 'maintenance work'. I like the term. I don't know how much time this will take. Probably months. With college starting in September, that might hinder my progress. I'll see once we get to that point. Thank you, for following the development of Yandere Sim- I mean, of Zodiacstuck.

[zodiacstucked]

About the Tales

I realize I haven't updated the Tales of Mutinous and Royalists for a long time. (it's the trolls' ancestor stories.) That's because the 3rd act is a combination of two smaller acts: how the Mutinous came to meet and how the Mutiny took place, and that second part is hard to write. I'm writing it, don't worry, but it's not a top priority right now. By the way, each act corresponds to a part of Cascade. If you stretch your imagination hard enough, it does. The epilogue's theme would be Do you remem8er me, and marks a transition between the Tales and Zodiacstuck's present events. Most of it is lore, and background information about Ryudra's fallen friends. But some parts of it tie into a plot device's timeline. Also it's something I wanted to do.

[zodiacstucked]

Alright.

The "no work week" has passed, and now is time for a little recap. -Most despicable panels have been re-made. The opening art is now acceptable. -Dialogues, text logs have been changed, and made interesting. Or at least, clearer. -Characters now have a defined personality. They have flaws, goals, interests and stories, and room for evolution. -Relationships are made a little more complex while not being in the spotlight. -Worldbuilding elements have been added, making Sotergan not "another Alternia". Kind of. There are still some other points that need to be changed, such as: -More art. Nothing is ever "good enough". -Rewrite a couple parts they seem too bad. -Repurpose pages and work with pagination. -Change minor story elements. -And other stuff, I guess. Don't expect new drawn panels, as I need time to get back to work. I might take a leisure week later this July, dates of which I will warn you about. I'll still be active via mobile, so I will precise details when I know them. Don't hesitate to suggest ideas. I might also slip in a couple updates to the Lomaf mini-arc, just 'cause I feel like it. Don't know if I' ll really do it, though. Keep zodiacin', friends.