Hello, everyone!

I am mildly (extremely) shocked that it is already December. Did the year pass by far too quickly for anyone else?

In the name of said fast passage of time, let us pass through the newsletter with equal too-quickness. 

I have a few more, but I don't wanna bloat this long Newsletter too much, so I'll put them in the Discord.

We shall have our 30th Prompt Poll this month. The fact that there have been 30 Prompt Polls already is so unbelievable to me that I didn't really notice it until it was pointed out to me a couple months back. That's a LOT of prompting, voting, and smut-writing.

I feel very fortunate that so many people have an interest in my interpretation/writing of their story ideas, and that so many people are invested enough to vote and even argue (in a friendly manner, as classy degenerates).

In this month of giving, I'd like to do some giving of my own in this Prompt Poll. What I'm thinking of doing is allowing the free-of-charge re-submission of any prompt submitted in the last three Prompt Polls, with a limit of three prompts per prompter. In other words, if you submitted more than three different prompts in total, I'll have to ask you to choose which three you prefer to re-submit free of charge.

Those who are Merchants can still add one more prompt as part of their tier benefit, provided we don't run out of slots too obscenely. I am willing to be more flexible with the number of slots this time around, considering the occasion.  If there are still enough slots after all that, Fighters can add the usual 1 prompt for 5 USD as well.

I am also considering making this an OC-only Prompt Poll. Our last winner was a fandom prompt (the much-desired HOTD one, that I still have to queue in the Workflow Central), and I have worked on a streak of fandom series recently. There's a bunch of OC stories queued in a row after Fertility Festival Of Hera, but still.

I haven't really made a decision yet, so feel free to persuade me in the comments below. Everything is up for change until I make the official Prompt Poll announcement post.

Last year, we had two Prompt Polls for a big end-of-year finale, but I can't do the same this time around. I'm way too packed with ongoing series, and there are still a few Prompt Poll winners to get through.

I'll actually talk a lot more about this a couple of topics below. So, let us continue!

EDIT: If you submitted fandom prompts in the last three Prompt Polls, don't worry, you won't be missing out on the free-of-charge re-submissions. You can keep the free slot and replace your prompt with whatever OC one you'd like. Of course, this is assuming I make it OC-only in the first place.

The yearly Santa of Degeneracy poll is a must! For those who don't know what this is, it's a poll where subscribers vote to make a currently-exclusive chapter publicly available on HF and AO3. A degenerate gift to the world, one might say.

...Though, the Black King Piece wins every time, so maybe I should change something or take two winners.

When I did that first AMA last year, I didn't really mean to make it a twice-a-year occasion, but it sort of ended up happening anyway.

Why not maintain tradition? Thus, we shall have an AMA later this month. 

Alright, big topic here. I get poked relatively frequently about when I might reopen commissions, and it's about time I had an answer. I told myself (and the world) that I'd reopen after slaying at least a few of my ongoing Subscribestar series, but I haven't been quite as effective as I'd have liked to.

I write heavy word counts, there is a steady influx of new stories/series due to Prompt Polls, and I have had a slower-than-usual final stretch of 2025 due to repeated life inconveniences - this isn't to make excuses, but to be descriptive. I am happy with the quality of my work, but I hate delivering less volume than I wanted, whether there is a 'valid' reason for it or not.

I bring this up to say that I am considering a halt to Prompt Polls after this month's big #30. The steady influx of new stories/series affects how quickly I can get to progressing the ongoing ones, and I can't deny the snowball growing larger. Also, I don't think anyone likes reading the start of a new series they want more of, only to have to wait a significant time gap for the next chapters.

The very reason I came up with the Six Pool strategy was to address this problem, but it doesn't work quite as well as I'd hoped with new series constantly being born, and God knows I suck at one-shots. Plus, even if each next Prompt Poll winner turned out to be a one-shot, it's still a hefty workload.

Don't misunderstand any of this as complaint. I love going crazy in each story and I am always excited to write Prompt Poll winners - exhibits A & B: the word counts and the full use of Usurpman spice (whatever that even means). But, I don't think I should keep kicking this growing snowball down the road. I had hoped to outpace it by closing for commissions and going all-out, but that seems to require a too-ideal scenario of productivity to be realistic for me.

The conclusion I have reached is to maybe curb this snowball problem by halting Prompt Polls after this month. This is something I have thought about for a while, and I don't really want to do it, but another factor is influencing my decision here: I HATE being closed for sequel commissions.

I have several commissioned stories that are not one-shots and that I'd love to continue/conclude, and I HATE the idea of people commissioning part of a series from me and then not being able to commission the next chapters.

So, what I am considering is to halt Prompt Polls until the very large number of Subscribestar series has been significantly trimmed down, and reopening for sequel commissions in the near future. Sequels are easier/faster to write since the 'foundation' is already there. Plus, accepting only sequels is a filter of its own to prevent too much workload increase, and I'd still only open limited slots anyway.

As I said, I haven't come to a decision yet. However, one obvious question is: what happens to the Merchant Tier? And no more fun, gory polls?

If I do go ahead with this decision, it opens up a good moment for experimentation. An idea I've had in mind for a while now is a monthly 'Degeneracy Pit' (name pending) exclusive to Merchants where they suggest bonus content ideas for ongoing/concluded Subscribestar series, and then I take the ones I like and put them in a poll - no idea if it'd be for all tiers or just Fighter and above.

By 'bonus content ideas', I mean short-form side-story scenes that are not part of the official chapters themselves, but could be just as canon; or maybe even brief what-ifs. I don't think these 'prompts' need any specific rules other than being built for short scenes and being attached to ongoing/finished Subscribestar series.

Random examples of what 'bonus content ideas' could be:

These are just off-the-cuff examples to showcase what I mean by 'bonus content idea'. Some of these are what-ifs, others are more comedy than smut, some are canonical prequel/post-epilogue scenes, some are canonical side-stories. AND, they are all built for short-form content/peeks.

The general idea is small scenes suggested by Merchants and maybe decided by majority vote; or maybe I just pick the ones I like. As I said, I haven't really decided anything for sure yet. If someone suggests ideas that I do not want to write for whatever reason, I will simply refuse them - after all, some may already be planned to feature in the main chapters of the series in question, or maybe I am not willing to write a certain what-if or side-story. And, obviously, any idea too big for short-form writing is auto-rejected.

I think this could be an interesting concept, but I wonder if it's good enough to replace Prompt Polls for a while? What do you think? Since I haven't come to a decision either way yet, I remain open to suggestions/feedback. 

Once I do, I'll have a clearer idea of when I might reopen for commissions.

There were two other ideas I also had for a 'big Prompt Poll festival' this December, but I think it'd be irresponsible of me to follow through with them after talking so much about a snowball problem. I totally wanna mention them anyway.

Idea number one was a Prompt Poll with all the prompts *I* submitted throughout the year. I am sometimes asked which ones were mine, so that could be entertaining. Maybe I'll reveal them anyway after this month's Prompt Poll?

Idea number two was me hand-selecting a prompt that did not win in 2025, but I kinda liked and wanted to win. Evidently, I'd pick one that wasn't submitted by me. A variation of this idea was doing a Prompt Poll with a selection of these.

Both of these ideas mean adding to the snowball problem. Assuming I halt Prompt Polls after this month, I could sorta see it as a one-time big bang before the grand halt, but I don't know if it's a smart thing for me to do.

As I said many times in this newsletter, I haven't fully decided anything. Feel free to give me your thoughts.

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With this, December's Newsletter is concluded. Thank you for reading my random ramblings. Let it be known that there should still be one more 'newsletter', as I intend to have an end-of-year letter this year as well (is that what I call it every year? I gotta check).

I've included memes about this page/my stories with every newsletter for over a year now. Should I take 'fan meme submissions' for the end-of-year letter this time around? I wonder if this is something people would like. Obviously, they'd have to be related to the page/my stories, not just random '2025 memes'. What do you think?

I now return to the shadows to wrap up Wally Pushes Hard - Chapter 3 and get that first Stacy draft out before I am murdered by waiting fans. I'll have Santa of Degeneracy up this week, the AMA right after, and then the official announcement for this month's Prompt Poll sometime later.

As always, thank you all for your continued support! I shall do my best this end of year!