#can't really do a thread like i did on twitter & don't want to spam the tl but

[tacticalgrandma]

Looking in the Mel Medarda tag & seeing “Mel represents privilege & Piltover & [doesn’t actually say slut but] while Viktor represents Goodness & Virtue” takes & knowing I’m not going to be physically safe on this site when s2 comes out

[heph]

Hey, I remember you mentioning on your IG something about two types of popular artists and one being good at social media and the other being good at art or something like that (I can't really remember lol). But it got me thinking, any tips for how to be good at social media? Cuz I'm certainly not even after posting art for six years lol

Heya!

What I meant by that is that there are traits that allow you to grow on social media, and traits that determine what a highly skilled artist is, and those traits do not always necessarily overlap.

I've seen so many amazing artists that post artwork that blow my head off, and yet they don't have many likes. On the other hand, some artists at the same skill level who draw more popular things will get way more attention.

That is not to say that either is the correct way to create art, but there is definitely a formula to social media that is in play.

There are a lot of posts about how to grow a social media account, particularly on TikTok, YouTube and Instagram art spheres, and imo you really need to examine what you want from your art before jumping into social media mode

The stuff you create to pander to social media might not be art that you want to create at all - I'm lucky, because I am less artist more storyteller, and what I enjoy is telling jokes and silly stories to liven up people's moods :] this, of course, conveniently does well on social media. On a personal note, I have a history of being a recluse and not connecting well with people, and art is my way of trying to communicate my feelings, one way or another.

So of course, if you draw for any reason other than my own, my approach to art and it's relation to social media might be inappropriate for you.

All that being said, if u take a look at those "get big on social media" videos they always cite the same few points... And you can look into that, for sure, but this video sums up how I feel about all that.

I spent like 20 minutes drafting words after the above paragraph, but I really ended up regurgitating sentiments from the video... So really don't listen to me, listen to that video

EDIT:

I just realised I didnt actually answer the question with my anecdotal experience, so here's a list of things I did

1. Posted like 3 doodles a day on social media

I did this for 6 months on a side account on Twitter recently and got the account to 11k followers... And I did this for 3 months on Instagram a few years ago and I think got 3.5k followers. Of course, do not spam maliciously and make sure your art is still of good quality, but for those artworks I posted quickly, I did not colour, and mostly did clean sketches. This also trains you in the matter of line confidence haha. Again, this worked for me because of my set of circumstances (love for the media, want to tell stories, simple art style)

2. Focus on my favourite aspects of media

This helps with respect to burnout - kinda hard to burnout when you love what you're making! For me, it's character interactions and comics. I want to see my blorbos kiss and if I'm not the one drawing it who will?!

3. Interact with people

People eat up work that they can interact with. A choose your own story situation, one of those like/rt to strip a character 😭 those do numbers for a reason.

Additionally, if you post stuff people love, people will respond to it with comments, maybe their own headcanons, adding on to the work... I've gone into long looong Twitter thread conversations with people who added onto my ideas that I threw up onto the screen and I think it's also a nice thing to do to respond to positive comments haha... I'm not very good at this (read: bad at communication)

I think that's the key points... Hope this helps!

[chainsawctopus]

Do you have Asa or any part 2 character's headcanons?

I loooooove the part 2 gang, and I've posted a bunch of hcs for them on Twitter a month ago! I'll copy and paste it all here

Warning, it's mostly Yoshida because my god I'm insane about him and I apologize

-Octopi are intelligent creatures so Yoshida's contract with the octopus devil is for him to get good grades because it doesnt want to work with a dumb human

-Yoshida ONLY drinks iced coffee, he can tolerate room temp but never hot

-Yoshida really likes cold food in general

-As a kid, Asa knew running while holding scissors is bad so she never did it because she knew she'd trip with them, but in grade school she probably tripped and got hurt anyway from a nearby classmate holding scissors

-Yoshida likes lemon lime sodas because I like lemon lime sodas no other reason it's just true

-Nayuta is a selective mute, but she and Denji click so well that he immediately knows if she needs anything even if she doesnt say or sign anything

-As reckless as he is sometimes, Denji is still very good at taking care of Nayuta, he learned a lot from Aki and from taking care of all the dogs. THIS I'm quite sure is basically canon, even just from the small glimpse of them together in ch97

-If CSM took place in modern times, Yoru is SHIT at video games and Asa is average (hi, not part of the original twt thread, I just remembered that csm doesn't take place THAT long ago and that Denji and Power literally bought a video game console with... Aki's money... So yeah the modern times part was a little dumb of me, but it still applies to some of the hcs ahead)

-Denji spams buttons in fighting games and Yoshida has combos memorized, but somehow he still loses to Denji sometimes

-Yuko is better than all of them and is probably a speedrunning champion

-If all four (five w yoru) of them played games together, Denji and Asa would be at each other's throats while Yoshida and Yuko silently keep playing and win in the end

-Yoru:"I WANT TO KEEP PLAYING!"

Asa:"YORU IT'S BEEN HOURS, IT'S MY TURN TO PLAY ALREADY"

-Remember the doom & acnh thing back then? Yeah Yoru is the one buying acnh and Yuko is the one buying doom

-Yoshida is a rhythm gamer and has spent hundreds of hours on his favs, BUT HE REFUSES TO TRY OSU.

-Denji unironically likes cbat

-Yuko would secretly be one of those popular vocaloid producers that make songs with really dark themes

-Asa listens to her songs a lot without knowing it's Yuko

-Oopsie I just made a fanfic prompt by accident lol feel free to steal the idea

That's the original thread! Here's a couple more hcs I have though, mostly just lgbtq hcs:

-Yuko is nonbinary (in the same way she can't understand people, she can't understand gender roles and all that dumb shit cishets push)

-Related to that last part, Yuko is autistic! It was genuinely my first thought when I read the "I don't understand people" line in 105, I love her so dearly (also I'm also a nonbinary autistic so I'm projecting a little)

-Yoshida is gay and grey aromantic (grayromantic?? Forgot the term) (Also projecting except I'm bi instead of gay, u can tell I love projecting onto my scrimblos)

-Yukoasa are bi4les! Asa is bi but is sapphic leaning after the interaction that is ch104 JSJSKFJDJ she really thought man, men aren't worth it and just visited yuko

-Asa is transfem!! Idk I just saw the flashbacks she had and how she had short hair at one point and I was like hmm and my transfem moots agreed (That post blew up a little actually and some people genuinely thought I was weird or that I was stereotyping cause of the short hair, so I don't talk about this hc that often. I genuinely would've headcanoned her as transfem before I even saw the short hair though, I love hitting csm characters with the transification beam.)

-Speaking of, Yoshida is transmasc! He's a reincarnation of Togata from Fire Punch that was able to successfully transition (socially at least), and he binds! This is one of my fav hcs cause god I love Togata and Yoshida's eerieness in part 1 is really EXTREMELY similar to Togata, and they both have really similar features like black eyes and hair, the fringe between their eyes, the mole under their lip, AND THE WAY THEY SMILE??? I genuinely no joke think Yoshida was meant to be a nod to Togata back when Fujimoto drew him in part 1

-Back to the videogames thing, Asa would be 1st in Mario Kart then fuck up last minute right before she reaches the finish line, and she ends up in last place. My girl trips at the worst time even in video games 💀

Okaaaay brain empty now, hope you enjoyed all these hcs!!

[barbiegirldream]

So let me see if I can wrap my head around this correctly. From the perspective of a Queer POC boob:

Ranboo can look at a bunch of threads of, essentially, a non issue of POC twt fans whining and pissing their pants because a closeted Queer person chose to actively help a community he was more familiar with than a community he would no absolutely NOTHING about (and would probably have some horrid ass takes like Tubbo/Phil did about the slap shit, eugh), but somehow feign ignorance and even JOKE about the rapant Queerphobia going on in his community, especially towards one of his supposed "close" friends- not even at least TRY to say to be kind towards him or others, even if you don't like him (Thank You Wilb, god bless) AND have the audacity to ignore the countless people sending him the thread, when it didn't even take HOURS for him to notice those threads by Pissbaby POC, and even address it not once- but THREE TIMES (Discord, Twitter, and Twitch).

But somehow. Someway, Dream's fans (I'm not even gonna dignify with Stans because at that point, this term is just derogatory for me) are the ones who bend over backwards for a white man who what? Isn't labeled? Doesn't even know where he falls on the spectrum, but still tries to at least acknowledge the hardships- no marter how minor- that his fans go through w/ the rampant Homophobia/Queerphobia going on in the world? Even taking pot shots at Chic-fil-A? A company who was outted for actively funding Anti-LGBT groups????

"BUT THE KKK/ISLAMPHOBIC EDIT-" At least that edit was years old and Dream- whether he made it or not- owned up to it and apologized to both groups one way or another.

"BUT THE DRUGS DRUGS TWEET-" Was made months ago and wasn't even making fun of Black People, let alone even targeting a specific Group to make fun of- but he still apologized for anyway.

I feel like I've been a huge fan of the wrong mf, I'll take the white prev. conservative Queer man who actually knows when shits fucked vs the White Queer man who actively was teetering the lines before activing his "Queer" trap card (not even an exaggeration either).

mhm I think what's different mainly is Dream had to put in the work. He was raised with no background in how to be supportive of the type of community he ended up fostering. That being poc, women, nd people, queer people, jewish and Islamic people. But he wants to be so he listens to his fans and he has an open line of communication with them. If you dm him a concern about something serious it's really likely you get a reply directly.

And Dream does respond to everything like literally everything he responds to. And if he thinks an apology is in order he gives one. He did address the edit for eight minutes and apologized for it directly. With the drugs drugs tweet he said he had no intentions of fostering harmful stereotypes so he deleted his tweet he got what people were worried about. Because he listens one thing Dream has always advocated for is the opportunity we as an online international community have to listen to one another and learn from one another.

But Ranboo doesn't want to put in the work. He thinks recognizing that he's white is enough to be anti racist it's not. He thinks being gay means he can't be homophobic it doesn't. Ranboo is 18 and I think he absolutely can grow and improve but it's a little upsetting to see he's so opposed to actual criticism he would let a friend and fellow cc be harassed by his own fans. Like someone tell Ranboo that Dream isn't responding to things because they're being spammed at him but because he wants to foster a better community and knows open communication is the best way to do it.

[demonboyhalo]

The Technoblade Conspiracy

Even before Dream claimed there was a traitor in Pogtopia, there's been a lot of...suspicious activities happening in Techno’s streams. Others on the SMP are already distrustful of him, and the fans are as well, but I believe that we’re focusing on the wrong thing here. This thread isn’t quite a traitor theory, but rather a dive into what Techno has been hiding at large. I can say with utter confidence that the extent of what Technoblade has accomplished on the Dream SMP is being greatly underestimated.

I recommend looking at the sus Techno moments thread by @piggytechnobarb on Twitter for some of the stream clips I'll be discussing.

This is going to be fairly in depth, so the rest is under the cut!

1. There is another room under what Techno calls his "secret base"

I won't talk too much on how strange his choice of "secret base" is for now, but please do keep in mind how out of character it is for man-who-tracked-down-Squid's-college to settle for a home base so unprotected and close to Pogtopia's very well known location.

So, for some reason, there is Polished Blackstone Brick under the floor of Techno’s wall. He accidentally reveals this when a donation asks him to mine the exposed redstone in his wall, acts a bit strange for a good 15 seconds, and then never mentions it again. Sight of the brick prompts him to silently zoom in, fill the hole with stone (not cobble), and say "Don't ask questions".

This is only so strange because there's no real reason for him to have stone at the ready, or any blackstone brick at all. Techno is NOT a builder, and if a creeper blew up down there, he'd fill it with cobble and not give a shit about aesthetics. He doesn't use smooth stone in his base, and has never built with blackstone on stream. Not only are they unusual items for him to have, it's unusual for him to make a point to not have the viewers question it. Yes, it could just be Techno being dramatic, but why did he go silent for a straight 5 seconds at the sight of the blackstone?

Considering who he is as a player, it is completely in character for Techno to build a second base. The lake he lives under is incredibly near Wilbur and Tommy, and he's well aware that all an enemy has to do is watch his stream to infiltrate his base. Techno goes to the extremes when they aren't even required (Ex. His insane skill in party games, beating Skeppy in as niche of a game as Grinch Simulator, etc.) So I don't think it's a stretch for him to go the extra mile, and hide a bunker/resources/extra armour and what have you from even his own viewers.

2. The overpowered illegal villager farm

For those of you who don't watch Ponk, he recently stumbled across an area that is supposedly banned on the Dream SMP - a villager farm. In the clip, his voice is astonished and his confusion is palpable, and he goes so far as to say "It's a full scale arms race" because of how many good trades there are. The location is laced with traps, though he doesn't mention what exactly he had to get past to find the farm. Ponk's reaction is far too genuine for the farm to be his, but then that begs the question, whose farm is it?

...Who is willing to risk Dream's wrath by breaking his rules? Or, alternatively, who is capable of making a secret pact with the server owner to allow such a farm? The answer could only be Technoblade.

Ponk says it himself in the video, he does not have the time to build this. Whoever made this had to have carved out a hidden cavern, lead at least 14 villagers down there, breed them until only the ones with the best trades were left - all off stream, and without another player catching them. Whoever made this had to spend hours of work with no content to show for it, and who do we know has been grinding for DAYS on the server? Technoblade. Not to mention, all the villagers are numbered, and all but one are fletchers.

The signs above each stall are so important, because going so far back as SMP Earth, Techno has a history of dispassionately breeding mobs to his benefit, and then killing any mob not performing well enough. For example, his horse farm: where the horses stay in numbered rooms rather than all being named. The villagers in the screenshot above are numbered rather than named.

Wanna hear a fun fact about Fletchers? They're well known for accepting sticks for emeralds, but will also take string for that trade as well! And guess who has been seen waiting at the spider spawner collecting string by Sapnap, Awesamdude, Quackity, and multiple other players? Technoblade.

Technoblade also has every reason to be breeding villagers for special arrows and crossbows, because he's said on stream that he wants to try spamming multi-shot crossbows in combat to take out huge groups of enemies. He said at a later point that he had run into trouble with getting multiple crossbows with the enchantment multi-shot, and implied it wasn't going to happen. But has he ever been the kind of person to be stopped by something being challenging? Absolutely not.

Think of literally anything Techno has done - his Bedwars win streak, beating MC with a steering wheel, the Potato Wars - what I believe is really happening, is that Techno is lying about how equipped he is so that no matter what side he ends up fighting for, his enemies will have no true way of knowing how powerful he is.

3. Dream might be his secret ally (AKA The Glowstone Incident)

This brings us to a...confusing moment in Techno's stream that sparked a lot of questions. It pointed me towards 2 different, but not necessarily exclusive, theories.

The Glowstone Incident precedes as follows: Techno needs glowstone but can't find any in his chests, so he puts on his BRB screen. He says that he is "hacking" and asking Dream to use game mode to give him the glowstone. Typing can be heard, and then multiple chests are opened. Techno takes off the BRB screen and he now has three stacks of glowstone dust. This was absolutely bewildering to watch live, and was one of the most blatantly suspicious things he has done in front of his viewers. (You can find the exact clip on the thread I mentioned, it is...so weird)

Theory A: Though unlikely, Techno could be Dream's secret ally, and Dream really did use creative to give him the stacks. Or, he potentially gave Techno OP permissions so that he could get the glow stone (and any other materials he’d want) himself.

We all remember their meet up on that ocean hill, where Dream gives Techno golden apples, diamonds, and other such materials for the battle against Schlatt. It seemed to be a one-off gift that was more for Wilbur's benefit than Techno's, but there's potentially the chance that Dream saw an alliance to Techno to be more beneficial than working only with Wilbur, and contacted him off screen to make deals.

Going back to the Village Farm - for a player to get the exact enchantment they want for a reasonable price, breeding them is the most logical option. It's the route Techno would take regardless of Dream's rules on the SMP too, as he tends to show little regard for what the creators want (Ex. Taking over SMP Earth, exploiting Hypixel Skyblock, etc.) However, it could also be possible that Dream gave Techno permission to do this, and so the reason Techno is keeping the farm secret is so that the viewers don't know of their alliance.

Theory B: Techno has hidden resources in his base that he doesn't want anyone to have even the chance to see. Whether it is to hide from enemies watching (or to hide from Dream in particular because Techno knows he's breaking the server's rules) there are secret chests that Techno has with extra resources that can be heard loud and clear in the video.

They could be simple ones hidden in the walls...or in the blackstone brick base hidden under his floors. Saying he’s “hacking” rather than the reality of him just checking all his chests again is on par for Techno’s usual dramatics - yet we can clearly see that there’s no glowstone in any of his chests. This is why I believe he got the glowstone from some unseen resource. With the BRB screen on, Techno prevents his viewers from actually seeing how he got the 3 stacks of powder, and it keeps the location of his hidden materials safe.

Personally, I feel theory B is more likely, but there have been moments where Dream has acted Sus so...be on the lookout y'all.

4. Techno not participating in MCC

For those of you who watched Techno during the Potato War, many will remember that MCC 6 had a stressful undertone. Because of how much effort and time Techno had been putting into farming on Skyblock, taking a break to compete in another event was distracting. It ultimately led to him losing time that, from his perspective, would have been better off spent farming.

Techno might not be as blatantly grinding on the Dream SMP as he did with the Potato War, but it's undeniable that other streamers have seen him online for stretches of 10 hours and more. When asked about why he wasn't participating in the next MCC, Techno didn't say he was taking a break - something that'd be entirely reasonable and honestly well earned - he said "I don't want to."

It could be awkward phrasing by virtue of Techno's personality, but what I think is more likely is that Techno has learned from his past mistakes. Rather than "waste" time competing in MCC, Techno might be planning to use the time everyone on the SMP is gone to his advantage. He could sneak into enemy territory, set traps in certain areas, or maybe even perform some illegal acts that Dream would never allow. Either way, I suspect Techno has something planned for the 14th.

Honorable Mentions:

Dream poking fun, or blatantly covering for Techno?

This clip of Techno's secret Something??? next to the spider spawner, undeniably suspicious

Techno had around 5 stacks of wool in his inventory at one point - he absolutely could be bed mining the nether not only so that he has multiple sets of OP netherite, but possibly because he's preparing the gear for another person (cough cough Philza) or people

Techno's collection of ghast tears. He's studied Crystal PvP and made plenty of 2b2t references in the past (Look up FitMC for more info on those things) So it could be possible that Techno is hiding stacks of end crystals so that he can decimate multiple players in an instant

All in all, I'm 100% convinced that Techno has some serious plans hidden behind the scenes that he's not going to share until it's time for him to unleash utter chaos. We know he's keeping secrets, we know he's had the time, and we know he's capable.

I hope you all enjoyed my research and feel terrified of what Techno could possibly have done off camera :D

If anyone else has different theories, corrections to what I wrote, or other moments where Pink was Sus, feel free to comment!

[facepalming-since-chernobyl]

The worrying thing is aside from people who followed this story, there are many who don't know what he did which means if he's in the dating scene, horrifyingly he could - and likely will - do this to someone else. Also, his "defense" was Melissa was "always falling for co-stars"? Hey scum of the earth, it's Hollywood, I can give a mile-long list of actors who do that, example: Keri Russell. So, that made it right to beat her? I really hope scumbag falls in a live volcano and burns alive.

Not that I really want to keep talking about him - why can't I do a vomit emoji on my laptop - but there's a comment on the ONTD thread about him that he got dropped from the Linklater movie, rumored. I haven't seen any official announcement of it so who knows if it's even true but then if Linklater finally wised up to what he is, maybe he got fired quietly? If not I don't have Twitter anymore but everyone should spam Linklater and tag this DUI story too.

&

There always will be people who check only one side of the story and well, fans who just want excuses to still follow the fave. But it is horryfying how many abusive men very easily find another victim. It's just them being very good manipulators.

I haven't seen his insta story about "she always dates the costars", but look how manipulative it is for many reasons. Her first official bf was a photographer, next was the scum who is an actor and then Chris, actor too. What always? Also, actors spend most of their time on set. When they have a role they spend like 16h every day on set? So when the fuck they can spend time with potential partners? Also, when you read how he gloated about falling for her and was so "happy" to have scenes with her, because thanks to that he could have became closer to her. What just proves, he knows exactly how actors find partners. So, once again, fuck him.

But ya know, talking about his insta, it's a funny slash horrible story. He deleted a lot of them, but it was full of his pics on shooting range, him boxing with his macho pals etc. Then Mel made her insta story, he deleted shit, stopped posting for a year, made his ass apology and the next on his insta is some vid with a little girl - i's so fucking patehtic and hilarious.

I support the volcano idea.

Do you know what movie exactly? Because so far no info on imdb.

EDIT: ok, it’s  Merrily We Roll Along and he is not listed.