648 words across 7 entries.

Homestuck for the Holidays Listen on: Bandcamp, YouTube (playlist)

Andrew Hussie: (MSPA news post, excerpt)

WHOA HEY. Check it out. A bunch of guys from the music team put together a sweet Christmas album at breakneck speed! It's quite great, and virtually free. They're giving all the proceeds to charity. NICE JOB DUDES.

Lexxy: (cover artist, DeviantArt)

FINALLY! The delicious fruit of my all-day drawing marathon.

The music team put together a free* holiday album as a thank-you to the MSPA community and asked if I would donate a cover illustration! It was unfortunately rushed, and is just BEGGING for me to keep working on it, but I already made them wait all day and couldn't justify continuing to be a terrible person.

I had the privilege of listening to it in advance and it is an excellent compilation. So download it and be jolly!

Happy Holidays, everyone!

Homestuck and its characters belong to Andrew Hussie.

*Apparently bandcamp has limited free downloads, which have already been exceeded! Fortunately, all proceeds go to Child's Play! So the meager amount you shell out for this is for a very good cause.

Robert J! Lake: (Bandcamp download blurb)

GOD BLESS US EVRYBODY

Robert J! Lake: (Bandcamp about blurb)

Please consider donating to www.childsplaycharity.org

Robert J! Lake: (Bandcamp credits blurb)

Robert J! Lake
Nick Smalley
Erik Scheele
Solatrus
Toby Fox
Alex Rosetti
Mark J. Hadley
Thomas Ferkol
James Dever
David Ko
Cover by Lexxy

The Squiddles Save Christmas Listen on: Bandcamp, YouTube

Alex Rosetti: (composer, Tumblr) 3/29/2013

Some artists say that when you are feeling burnt out, you should let loose and make any old thing, like scribbling, throwing paint onto a canvas, or whatever the first idea that comes to your mind is. The sloppier the better. The purpose of this is not to think too hard about your art, to be able to make "bad art" and not worry about it. You get to flex your creative muscles without the expectation of making something exemplary. The Squiddles Save Christmas is an example of this exercise, or it would be if it didn't turn out to be the best thing I ever made.

The plan was for us to make Homestuck for the Holidays in a single week. It was a fun idea, and while I wasn't initially up for it, something ended up clicking in the dark recesses of my soul and at the last possible moment I decided to tread down an evil musical path. I had been sick that week, you see, sicker than I had been in a long time. I was freezing cold, blowing chunks, and generally pretty miserable.

Also, my then-workshop was in a non-heated part of my parents' house, and composing back there was like making an expedition into the frozen tundra. But I persevered, eager to satisfy the beast within me, crying out for Squiddly fun. It started out normal enough, with a cheery tune, sleigh bells, and other cliché Christmas conventions that would suit a hypothetical children's special. The only way I could convince myself to make Christmas music was if it was Squiddles themed. It seemed like the easier thing to tackle.

I made up the lyrics as I went along. barely trying to maintain any sort of rhyme scheme and still being delirious from sickness.

"Hey everybody let's all sing
because the squiddles just bought a Christmas tree"

That was as far as I got before I gave up. The squiddles hesitating to find lyrics to sing was genuine, and it went downhill from there. After that, I decided I was tired of actually trying to make music, so I copied+pasted a bunch of measures and improvised into the microphone. And thus Nog Baby was born. Nog Baby's voice is my own, and is a 100% accurate representation of how I am feeling when I am sick and miserable and want everything to die.

Of course, I got tired of that too, so I gave up and said "go get him" and pulled some clips out of the Plumbthroat Archive™, applied a tinny filter, and fucked around with the samples...."f-f-f-f-f-f-f-fucking squiddles".

And there you have it...that shit helped produce money for charity. SKIPPER PLUMBTHROAT SCREAMING “FUCKING SQUIDDLES” AND ME PRETENDING TO THROW UP AS A PITCH-SHIFTED SQUID HELPED SICK CHILDREN. WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH THE WORLD.

Candlelight Listen on: Bandcamp, YouTube

Robert J! Lake:

I ruined this song with my voice