coldlandstarlight

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Monstrosity is here, so it's time to: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

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GUYS GUYS GUYS GUYS

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i know people like to rag on kai for his face bandage but there are legit reasons he might do that

like, i have a skin tag on my face with blood in it, so occasionally i scratch too hard and BAM blood everywhere

covering it with a sticker or bandage prevents that

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[Important] Catbox Needs Your Help

Heyooo. It hasn't been too long since the last blog post, but this one's going to be a lot more important... and quite a bit longer.

tl;dr - Patreon deleted my page, refused to elaborate, and Catbox is now short $1,300~ in reoccurring income to pay the bill. Support Catbox Here

What Happened

In the early morning of May 20th, I received two email notifications from Patreon and Ko-fi, informing me that both of my accounts were suspended for "material that falls outside the bounds of [their] Community Guidelines" and "a violation of [their]Terms Of Service or Content Guidelines", respectively.

Naturally, after submitting appeals to both of them, and waiting 24 hours, I received two different results, both with unsatisfying amounts of answers:

Okay, cool, so Patreon is telling me to go fuck myself, and Ko-fi is at least willing to play ball. I responded to Ko-Fi with a bit more in depth of the systems Catbox uses to monitor uploads for malicious content, and they reinstated my Ko-fi account on Thursday, May 22nd.

Unfortunately, there is only $20 of monthly support coming through Ko-fi. Patreon was Catbox's primary source of income, at around $1,300 per month. I have not updated Catbox's cost breakdown since 2022, and there have been slight changes. Below is the new breakdown, including agreements I have with other services that provide some small funding towards Catbox:

COSTS

Datacenter Colocation: $1,528/month

Upgrades/Hardware Maintenance: $100/month

Offsite Storage: $200/month

Cloud Server Providers: $40/month

Administrative Costs: $60/month

INCOME

Hardware Sharing Contracts: $440/month

Ko-fi: $20/month

One-time support (incl. merch) (avg last 6 months): $80/mo

For those not keeping track, that means without Patreon, Catbox is running at a deficit of about $1,388/month. Hardware Sharing Contracts are typically deducted from the Datacenter Colo cost, which is why it has always appeared lower on the breakdowns.

I've received many emails over the years regarding the cost of datacenter colocation, including things like "why is it so high", "why don't use you [insert cloud provider here]". The reason I colocate my own hardware is for multiple reasons, including the reason for this post. I can manage my own hardware (I'm actually smart sometimes!), upgrade it with 1-off costs (instead of needing to change plans, increasing monthly costs, etc), purchase new hardware when needed, and plan accordingly. I also don't have to worry about getting my service suspended by providers like Cloudflare or other shitty dedicated server providers who balk at the first abuse report. I have been colocating Catbox's hardware in a full size cabinet in downtown LA for the last 7 years. A majority of that time has been on dedicated 10gbps service, and running at full power. To both host 130+ TB of data, and push 1 petabyte of traffic per month on any cloud provider would be, quite frankly, impossible.

What Happens Now

That being said, I have finished the replacement to Patreon - I'm cutting out the middlemen, and now you can support Catbox monthly, directly! As well as get some new, better bonuses than what was previously offered on Patreon!

Supporting Catbox Directly

You can now visit the Catbox Store and find 3 options for supporting Catbox directly. Each support tier has different bonuses for support, stacking upon the previous.

Tier 1: Add 2 "QTs" to the image rotation (the images in the bottom right corner of the screen).

Tier 2: In addition to Tier 1, your max upload size is now 500 MB, and your max duration on Litterbox can be 7 days, as well as tracking uploads/deleting early.

Tier 3: In addition to Tier 2, your max upload size is now 1 GB.

Catbox has enough float to cover the server bill that was due on the 1st of June, however does not have the money to float for another 2 months. I need to recoup the $1,300 in monthly income from Patreon, and if all of the previous $7 and $15 Patrons re-pledged at Tier 2, that would be enough to make it there!

I hope that you can help me reach this goal, not just for the future of Catbox, but for the future of the free Internet. If you have any questions, please feel free to email me directly.

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Get bugged

Sooo excited for monstrosity!! I've been seeing centipede Kai everywhere and I'm lovin the idea so, behold, a cursed centipede boi

Here's some closeups cause I know tumblr will eat the quality

May or may not write a fic for this...we'll see 😌

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who else loves the pilots

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when i was a child i was a girl (i am not a girl anymore in case i need to clarify) and i really hated ninjago because at the time the only female character that i could play pretend as wasn't even a ninja and i wanted to be kai ninjago sooo bad and i was mad as hell that i was always stuck being the lame sister who didn't do much and didn't have awful fucked up spiky hair. this is intrinsic to my lore okay i've mentioned this before. what i have not yet mentioned is that i proceeded to eat multiple nya minifigures that my brother got because if there wasn't a nya i wouldn't be forced to play her (my logic as a child was flawless btw)

i have no memory of shitting nya out so for all we know i could have multiple nya minifigures in my stomach to this day

-kai anon

.

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I'd like to think that Kai used to be a shy kid

also bonus sketch:

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ummmmm. Kai. (college will k!ll me someday)

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Before the whimsy, there were horrors™

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SO HYPED FOR MONSTROSITY !!!!!

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Re: the idea of the monsters in the monster realm being metaphorical remains of the souls trapped within the realm.

We already see that there are TONS of civilizations or at least remains of people in the trailer thus, the idea that these monsters used to be people once but either being unwilling and unable to transformed them into these horrific monsters that haunt their once totally normal realm.

People have joked that Kai is trapped in Dark Spuls but that is a very Dark Souls/Bloodborne/Elden Ring concept where you the protagonist has stumbled upon a rotting dead zombie of a world in the last throws of life AT BEST that fell to ruin often times because of some human vice like greed, ambition, lust, etc. so, my wild mass speculation is that the elemental master of fire that got bugged was just abnormal person in this world originally, maybe even a hero, like many of the monsters in this land and as the world became more corrupted their revenants became the creatures that we see in the trailer ALONG with those civilizations being pulled in by the merge itself. Just purely apocalyptic.

It could also be that. I think that would fit also, that this world was brought down by some Kai’s worst traits he has in himself. But also, other survivors feeling as if this is a punishment for their kingdoms greed/warmongering or something and Kai wondering if this is some comedic karmic punishment.

Re: also the idea of the revenant with the falling sword monster becoming a legend out of the realm of monster would fuck because Kai would know thats him (it’s hard to miss a flame wielding man, with a dragon, and metal mechanical mech behind him) but no one else would and he would just, stare into space for a long time. Again, that idea that if the centipede monster is what left of his ancestor’s soul what will his soul become when he no longer has a flesh body to keep it contained.

Gonna link the post I'm assuming you're referencing for context! :)

HOLY FUCK ANON YOU'RE COOKING SO HARD?????? I HAVE NOT CONSIDERED THE IDEA THAT THAT IS WHAT BECAME OF CIVILIZATION IN THIS REALM?????? Like that's genuinely so horrific, being forced to lose your humanity and have the worst and darkest parts of yourself be all the remains.... sickening, anon you make me ill.

I am not much of a gamer, so I fear those comparisons are rather wasted on me, but I think I still get the gist of what you're saying. And gosh, that would be so cool if that was the case. Genuinely. just the sheer powerlessness of the situation, being forced and corrupted into a thing you never were before. The Land of Monsters really does remind you that the Merge is an apocalyptic event... like holy shit.

I really do wonder if something like that is going through Kai's head, if he's sitting here wondering if it's some karmic retribution that this happened, that he's in this place. And I'm convinced he's replaying every bad decision he's made over and over and over again in his mind, trying to piece together how he wound up here.

Dude... (gender neutral), you can't come into my inbox and say something as poetic as "what will his soul become when he no longer has a flesh body to keep it contained." Actually you're gonna make me lose it /pos. But yeah.... the idea of Kai becoming a legend himself, a legend to be feared, is such a chilling thought. In Ninjago he's gotta be a legend (alongside the others ofc) by this point, but for being a hero, for saving the day. So the idea of that all being flipped on its head and him becoming a legend for being a monster.... yeah, I'm ill.

RAHHH ANON WHYYYYYY

[coldlandstarlight]

Hc that Kai has Insomnia

Kai can't sleep properly, his time in the Land of Monsters forced his body to adjust to sleeping with one eye open, he was always a pretty light sleeper. When they was younger he had to be ready to help Nya in a blinks notice and Wu would wake them up to train or save the world. But now he'd wake up even to the quitest footsteps.

He couldn't even sleep long now, Sometimes it would be ten minutes or an hour or two, but sleep was a luxury when beasts threatened to kill and/or eat him every other minute. He'd go days without even laying down, too scared to die before he saw his family again.

But even though he's safe at home now, family all around him. He still can't sleep, his instincts scream at him to say up and keep guard. Protect them from the Monsters that will surely come to kill. Of course, Nya questions why he's so tired but kai just brushes her off. After all there is no point in worrying his sister when he has everything under control.

It's not pleasant to wander the monastery halls at night, always a risk of scaring someone else, he normally sits in the kitchen watching the windows. Sometimes Lloyd would find himself up early after a nightmare or vision, Kai would help him. Lloyd would ask him why he's up, Kai would brush him off. "I was hungry and hadn't eaten earlier," or "I just felt something was off and then you work up."

It's all bullshit he knows this. But No one can know the truth, he's got to keep it all together for them. Just until they're all safe again.

Cole still asks him if he's alright when he starts to doze off. Kai blinks his eyes open and says he's fine. He's fine, he is doing fine, he doesn't need someone to help him. He's got it all together. Why can't Cole see that?

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Just wanted to do a quick sketch of Kai from the trailer...

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Monstrosity

two versions cause im indecisive also i just found out how to customize font this is so fun ,...

also comms are open maybe one day i will remember to make a post...