#this blog has had A LOT of dedication put into it. every post and art we rb did take time to find

[thegeneticopera]

hey for the record its uncool as hell to make your own repo archive blog and then come mass rb from this one to pad yours with our curated posts lol

[dailyrothko]

Hey! Just so you know. My partner and I are long distance and met on tumblr; one of the things we share is a love of Rothkos. When we met, we went and saw one (surprise!) at a local museum and it was. Humbling and incredible and so lovely. I've sent her so many of your posts, and been sent many in return. Just wanted to say your images have not only inspired conversation and bonding and delight, but also helped to create connections and romance and love. I threw in a donation, but this blog has been a part of something I value so much more, and the beauty and thoughts provoked by your images and posts and scans are marvelous. Thank you for what you do, and I appreciate it immensely.

Well first of all just thank you it's so sweet, your story and also what you wrote.

Not to overshare but I'm someone who is not always doing great either in the practical sense of living or in the psychological sense of having lots of lifelong emotional issues. I always thought it was kind of narcissistic for people to say that something they were doing is made worth it by the people who appreciate it. After all, in this case, I'm not painting the pictures, so I tend to feel like it's just the work is out there and I put some effort into cataloging and trying to bring it forth in the best way I can but, I'm not, as they say, curing cancer.

However today, I had difficulty rousing myself out of bed to pick a painting and a quote and get the things around on social media and it sometimes feels like a chore because it's every single day. And the rest of my life is not going that well and it is not out of wishing for sympathy or anything of that nature, but just to provide context that I have to say that your act of writing to me really was touching.

One of the things I always tell the naysayers about Rothko, is that whatever they think about what they consider to be the garbage of modern art, people find it and they like it and they were not made to or told to or educated to that end. They felt something and every time you discover something that makes you feel, wherever you found it, I think it's a good thing for the world.

And especially now when the planet is pushing an anti-intellectual movement ,a lot of it motivated by greed and the desire to get credit and money from doing creative things without actually putting anything of yourself into them, Rothko seems special to me as many artists do. He really did dedicate his life to something, which maybe not everybody will like but obviously it does move a lot of people.

So not to prattle on, but really thank you much. You taking the time to tell me your story was very generous and I appreciate it.

[aliteralsemicolon]

honestly, the whole ai fight or disagreement thing is kinda insane. we’re seeing the same pattern that happened when the first advanced computers and laptops came out. people went on the theory that they’d replace humans, but in the end, they just became tools. the same thing happened in the arts. writing, whether through books or handwritten texts, has survived countless technological revolutions from ancient civilizations to our modern world.

you’re writing and sharing your work through a phone, so being against ai sounds a little hypocritical. you might as well quit technology altogether and go 100 percent analog. it’s a never ending cycle. every time there’s a new tech revolution, people act like we’re living in the terminator movies even though we don’t even have flying cars yet. ai is just ai and it’s crappy. people assume the worst but like everything before it it will probably just end up being another tool because people is now going to believe anything, nowadays.

Okay so...no. It's never that black and white. Otherwise I could argue that you might as well go 100% technological and never touch grass again. Which sounds just as silly. There are many problems with AI and it's more than just 'robots taking over'. It's actually a deeper conversation about equity, ethics, environmentalism, corruption and capitalism. That's an essay I'm not sure a lot of people are willing to read, otherwise they would be doing their own research on this. I'll sum it up the best I can.

DISCLAIMER As usual I am not responsible for my grammar errors, this was written and posted in one go and I did not look back even once. I'm not a professional source. I just want to explain this and put this discussion to rest on my blog. Please do your own research as well.

There's helpful advancement tools and there's harmful advancement tools. I would argue that AI falls into the latter for a few of reasons.

It's not 'just AI', it's a tool weaponised for more harm than good: Obvious examples include deep fakes and scamming, but here's more incase you're interested.

A more common nuisance is that humans now have to prove that they are not AI. More specifically, writers and students are at risk of being accused of using AI when their work reads more advance that basic writing criteria. I dealt with this just last year actually. I had to prove that the essay I dedicated weeks of my time researching, writing and gathering citations for was actually mine.

I have mutuals that have been accused of using AI because their writing seems 'too advanced' or whatever bs. Personally, I feel that an AI accusation is more valid when the words are more hollow and lack feeling (as AI ≠ emotional intelligence), not when a writer 'sounds too smart'.

"You're being biased."

Okay, here is an unbiased article for you. Please don't forget to take note of the fact that the negative is all stuff that can genuinely ruin lives and the positive is stuff that makes tasks more convenient. This is the trend in every article I've read.

Equity, ethics, corruption, environmentalism and capitalism:

Maybe there could be a world where AI is able to improve and truly help humans, but in this capitalistic world I don't see it being a reality. AI is not the actual problem in my eyes, this is. Resources are finite and lacking amongst humans. The wealthy hoard them for personal comfort and selfish innovations leading to more financial gain, instead of sharing them according to need. Capitalism is another topic of its own and I want to keep my focus on AI specifically so here are some sources on this topic. I highly recommend skimming through them at least.

> Artificial Intelligence and the Black Hole of Capitalism: A More-than-Human Political Ethology > Exploiting the margin: How capitalism fuels AI at the expense of minoritized groups > Rethinking of Marxist perspectives on big data, artificial intelligence (AI) and capitalist economic development

I want to circle back to your first paragraph and just dissect it really quick.

"we’re seeing the same pattern that happened when the first advanced computers and laptops came out. people went on the theory that they’d replace humans, but in the end, they just became tools."

One quick google search gives you many articles explaining that and deeming this statement irrelevant to this discussion. I think this was more a case of inexperience with the internet and online data. The generations since are more experienced/familiar with this sort of technology. You may have heard of 'once it's out there it can never be deleted' pertaining to how nothing can be deleted off the internet. I do not think you're stupid anon, I think you understand this and how dangerous it truly is. Especially with the rise in weaponisation of AI. I'm going to link some quora and reddit posts (horrible journalism ik but luckily I'm not a journalist), because taking personal opinions from people who experienced that era feels important.

> Quora | When the internet came out, were people afraid of it to a similar degree that people are afraid of AI? > Reddit | Were people as scared of computers when they were a new thing, as they are about AI now? > Reddit | Was there hysteria surrounding the introduction of computers and potential job losses?

"the same thing happened in the arts. writing, whether through books or handwritten texts, has survived countless technological revolutions from ancient civilizations to our modern world."

I think this is a logical guess based on pattern recognition. I cannot find any sources to back this up. Either that or you mean to say that artists and writers are not being harmed by AI. Which would be a really ignorant statement.

We know about stolen content from creatives (writers, artists, musicians, etc) to train AI. Everybody knows exactly why this is wrong even if they're not willing to admit it to themselves.

Let's use writers for example. The work writers put out there is used without their consent to train AI for improvement. This is stealing. Remember the very recent issue of writer having to state that they do not consent to their work being uploaded or shared anywhere else because of those apps stealing it and putting it behind a paywall?

I shouldn't have to expand further on why this is a problem. Everybody knows exactly why this is wrong even if they're not willing to admit it to themselves. If you're still wanting to argue it's not going to be with me, here are some sources to help you out.

> AI, Inspiration, and Content Stealing > ‘Biggest act of copyright theft in history’: thousands of Australian books allegedly used to train AI model > AI Detectors Get It Wrong. Writers Are Being Fired Anyway

"you’re writing and sharing your work through a phone, so being against ai sounds a little hypocritical. you might as well quit technology altogether and go 100 percent analog."

...

"it’s a never ending cycle. every time there’s a new tech revolution, people act like we’re living in the terminator movies even though we don’t even have flying cars yet."

Yes there is usually a general fear of the unknown. Take covid for example and how people were mass buying toilet paper. The reason this statement cannot be applied here is due to evidence of it being an actual issue. You can see AI's effects every single day. Think about AI generated videos on facebook (from harmless hope core videos to proaganda) that older generations easily fall for. With recent developments, it's actually becoming harder for experienced technology users to differentiate between the real and fake content too. Do I really need to explain why this is a major, major problem?

> AI-generated images already fool people. Why experts say they'll only get harder to detect. > Q&A: The increasing difficulty of detecting AI- versus human-generated text > New results in AI research: Humans barely able to recognize AI-generated media

"ai is just ai and it’s crappy. people assume the worst but like everything before it it will probably just end up being another tool because people is now going to believe anything, nowadays."

AI is man-made. It only knows what it has been fed from us. Its intelligence is currently limited to what humans know. And it's definitely not as intelligent as humans because of the lack of emotional intelligence (which is a lot harder to program because it's more than math, repetition and coding). At this stage, I don't think AI is going to replace humans. Truthfully I don't know if it ever can. What I do know is that even if you don’t agree with everything else, you can’t disagree with the environmental factor. We can't really have AI without the resources to help run it.

Which leads us back to: finite number of resources. I'm not sure if you're aware of how much water and energy go into running even generative AI, but I can tell you that it's not sustainable. This is important because we're already in an irrevocable stage of the climate crisis and scientists are unsure if Earth as we know it can last another decade, let alone century. AI does not help in the slightest. It actually adds to the crisis, we're just uncertain to what degree at this point. It's not looking good though.

I am not against AI being used as a tool if it was sustainable. You can refute all my other arguments, but you can't refute this. It's a fact and your denial or lack of care won't change the outcome.

My final and probably the most insignificant reason on this list but it matters to me: It’s contributing to humans becoming dumber and lazier.

It's no secret that humans are declining in intelligence. What makes AI so attractive is its ability to provide quick solutions. It gathers the information we're looking for at record speed and saves us the time of having to do the work ourselves.

And I suppose that is the point of invention, to make human life easier. I am of the belief that too much is of anything is every good, though. Too much hardship is not good but neither is everything being too easy. Problem solving pushes intellectual growth, but it can't happen if we never solver our own problems.

Allowing humans to believe that they can stop learning to do even basic tasks (such as writing an email, learning to cite sources, etc) because 'AI can do it for you' is not helping us. This is really just more of a personal grievance and therefore does not matter. I just wanted to say it.

"What about an argument for instances where AI is more helpful than harmful?"

I would love for you to write about it and show me because unfortunately in all my research on this topic, the statistics do not lean in favour of that question. Of course there's always pros and cons to everything. Including phones, computers, the internet, etc. There are definitely instances of AI being helpful. Just not to the scale or same level of impact of all the negatives. And when the bad outweighs the good it's not something worst keeping around in my opinion.

In a perfect world, AI would take over the boring corporate tasks and stuff so that humans can enjoy life– recreation, art and music– as we were meant to. However in this capitalist world, that is not a possiblility and AI is killing joy and abolish AI and AI users DNI and I will probably not be talking about this anymore and if you want to send hate to my inbox on this don't bother because I'll block your anon and you won't get a response to feed your eristicism and you can never send anything anonymous again💙

[numbuh424]

Hello! I really love your Death Note art!! Especially your blog header. I saw it and thought it was so cool how you copied the manga style!! Your posts about it say they're you're Death Note OC? Do you have anymore info you can share about them or previous posts about them? Are they a Death Note user? I'm really curious cause the art is so cool and I love reading about people's OCs. That's all, thanks for all the cool art you make!

Hello!! Thank you so much for enjoying my art 🙏 And thank you for asking about my OC! I've never really talked about her publicly before just cause I've never really... Made an OC before? So this ask made me really happy 🥹 I'll try to keep this short but it definitely won't be lol because I don't know when I'll ever get to talk about her again.

Years ago I had a plot stewing in my head for a story where Near shuts down the L successor program, steps down as L, and puts the title to rest. It takes place a year after the A-Kira story, which is around 10 years after Death Note's main story.

The idea was that someone began exposing Wammy's for their covered-up misdeeds and the fact that this is where successors of L were being raised. Because of that information being leaked, Wammy's House becomes unsafe for everyone in it.

OC talk under the cut 🙏

Apart from needing an antagonist who leaks all this information, I also needed a character who was there during the years Near wasn't to fill in the gaps for him and lead him to the culprit.

All the major information about her is here on this OC character profile I made a while back. Lee honestly began as a general persona/self-insert that I use whenever I want to draw myself. I still often use her as my persona when I make silly doodles and whatnot. However, as a Death Note OC, I've really lost control of her and she has just gone on to take a life of her own lol

Lee comes from Wammy's House and entered when she was 12, a lot later than the rest. She first arrived only months before L died and Near and Mello left to hunt Kira. Though gifted with photographic memory, she could never really make it into the successor program through that alone. Despite this, she dedicated her years at Wammy's to pursuing the title against all odds, only to come up short every single time until she finally graduated. Knowing she wasted years pursuing the title, she grew bitter towards L and the program and left the orphanage to pursue an art career like she originally wanted.

She became an art teacher and kept her distance from anything related to the crime/police/investigators. Unfortunately, as fate would have it (fate being me, the person controlling everything about her life), she became a witness to a crime where she used her skills to draw the culprit. Her sketch is what gets the man arrested and what causes the police to recruit her. Though she always said she'd abstain from detective work after wasting her time on it at Wammy's, she wants to be useful so she agrees to work part-time lowkey.

She doesn't like having the spotlight on her, as years of fighting for it in her youth have worn out her motivation for being seen. She keeps her past under lock and key and lies about it constantly, but her memory allows her to keep track of her lies easily.

Her role in the story is that her past identity (her real name and lived experiences) is stolen and used to frame her as the person leaking information about the orphanage - an "insider tells all" who wants to destroy L, Quillish Wammy, and the orphanage. Because Lee is so detached from her past, at first she lets the culprit just use her old identity. It's not her anymore, anyway, so why bother her about it? It's only when the culprit starts murdering people and throws her current identity under the bus that she starts sweating. There's a criminal investigation underway and she's their only suspect.

Near and his team know she's not behind any of this; they're really the only ones who know for sure because of his ties to Wammy's (it's kind of a reverse L and Light situation where he's sure it's not her but everyone else is out to get her lol). However, she can definitely help point them in the direction of the person who's behind it all.

The problem is Lee's animosity towards the L program extend to Near, who is the only L she really knows considering the real L died a few months after she arrived at the orphanage. Near tries to bring her on board for the case since she's the best lead they could possibly ask for, but because of her distaste towards L and the orphanage, she refuses to join at first. The culprit going one step further and framing her for murder is what pushes her to finally go with Near and his team because her life has fallen apart and the police are coming to get her.

She really doesn't wanna help L and joins mostly for self preservation. She kinda gets a kick out of the fact that she has information the world's greatest detective can't get from anyone else. It's childish of her, but what's Death Note without a bit of childishness.

Also, to answer your other question, she's not a Death Note user. I certainly intended for her to be back then (hence the art I made for her where she has the notebook) but the story I came up with has undergone dramatic changes since. She still very much works with pen and paper, just not in that way anymore lol

That's most of the basic information about her and her role in the story I may or may not ever write. I honestly have the broad strokes mapped out already, including the ending.

Spoilers (for a story that only exists in my head lol), Near has Wammy's House demolished and has a new institution built for the kids. The successor program is dissolved and he has Lee head the art department since she was already an art teacher before everything happened.

Thanks so much for asking about her 🙏

[putschki1969]

2024/07/30 Blog post by Wakana 明日締め切りです！！〜夏の強めの目覚ましビーム〜

❗This is Fan Club EXCLUSIVE content❗ ❗PERSONAL USE ONLY❗ ❗Do NOT SHARE on other sites❗ ❗Join her FAN CLUB! Check out my detailed TUTORIAL ❗

The Deadline Is Tomorrow!! ~Powerful Summer Wake-up Beam~

These days, it's hot every day… 😇How is everyone doing? During the summer, I run the air conditioner in my living room 24 hours a day. When I go to bed, I open the bedroom door a little to let the cool air from the living room flow into the bedroom…The gap in my door is perfectly in line with a small vertical window on the east side of my living room. Every morning without fail at around 5 o'clock, the strong morning sun hits my eyes like a laser beam. (I took this photo while half asleep) It's a very intense way to wake me up. This morning, I was woken up by the beam as usual.

Hello, this is Wakana (0￣▽￣0)／

Of course I'll go back to sleep. 😪💤I've been thinking about putting up some kind of blind on this small window, but every year, the summer ends without me putting anything on it 😂

Now, everyone!! The deadline for this month's podcast submissions for the episode on August 10th is tomorrow! ＼＼\٩( 'ω' )و //／／

The talk topics arte:

What kind of pillow do you use?

Anything you want to ask me♪

Please tell me about your pillow situation at home! Which kind do you find comfortable to sleep on? Do you even use a pillow? Or maybe you have a bunch of pillows? Or you could share a particular way of sleeping on a hot humid night! I'm just very curious about everyone's pillows! 😄And of course you can ask me anything you want once again so please don't hesitate to send your questions＼(^o^)／I'm waiting! ! ! ･:*+.(( °ω° ))/.:+

Click here to submit a message! ↓↓↓ https://wakana-fc.jp/answers/botanical_oshaberi_12/new

Everyone, please take care of your health and don't push yourself too hard! The other day I felt a bit squeamish when I was drying my hair with a hair dryer 😱 I think it was probably because it was too hot 😓Even though I was in a cool room with a fan on and keeping hydrated🥺 Your head can get overheated easily even if you are being careful🥺Don't forget to take precautions against heatstroke even when you're at home!

Until next time~☆( '▽')/

＊＊＊Wakana＊＊＊

2024/08/01 Instagram post by Wakana

Last month, I went to "Ghibli Park and Ghibli Exhibition" in Tokyo‼️(^o^) It was so much fun~😍 This has made me want to go to Ghibli Park even more ✨I'll definitely go someday…😳✨There were so many great photo spots, I had so much fun taking a ton of picutres😂Today I'll focus on the Totoro section💕 I was happy to see Totoro and the Cat Bus welcoming me at the entrance♡ The inside of the the Cat Bus was so fluffy🥰 They also had Satsuki and Mei's father's study room in display. I love the wobbly pillars😂

I got a Totoro and a little Totoro as souvenir☺️💓 I have a lot of other photos so I'll post them later~🌻(Source)

2024/08/04 Instagram post by Wakana

"Ghibli Park and Ghibli Exhibition" Photos Part 2!! 🥳🎉 Today's post is dedicated to Princess Mononoke 🐾 Here I am at the photo spot where you can ride on Yakul and Yamainu on a merry-go-round 📸They were both so cute and beautifully decorated…😍💕I brought along my San keychain, so I showed it to Yakul 🤗 (Yakul didn't seem particularly interested though) (Source)

2024/08/07 Instagram post by Wakana

"Ghibli Park and Ghibli Exhibition" Photos Part 3!!🥳🎉 Today is dedicated to Spirited Away 🐲🍙 I got to take some photos with No-Face😍💕 I was nervous…😳💓No-Face was pretty tall😳 It was bigger than I imagined and I thought "Wow"😳

I also visited Yubaba's room🤗I had a big smile on my face while imagining Yubaba saying to me, "From now on, your name is Waka! Okay, Waka!"😂I wasn't intimidated at all😂

Tomorrow I'll post a little summary of my adventures at "Ghibli Park and Ghibli Exhibition"!!🧚✨ (Source)

2024/08/08 Instagram post by Wakana

I'm worried about everyone in Kyushu after the earthquake that occurred this evening. I hear that there might be a wave of aftershocks and other earthquakes but I hope that the damage will not be too great. The expected epicenter area also includes the Kanto region so I will do my best to be prepared. Please be careful, everyone.

Yesterday I mentioned that I would upload a little summary of my Ghibli adventure so here it is☺️ These are the last photos from my visit to"Ghibli Park and Ghibli Exhibition"🥳🎉I was able to look at various exhibits but now, more than ever, I want to go to Ghibli Park soon🥺 That really sums up my feelings…!!🥺💓 It's like a dream to be able to actually experience those amazing stories in the real world✨I vowed to myself that I will definitely go to the park someday soon🧚Until then, I will continue to dream about that day! 😻🔥(Source)

[aibouart]

admittedly, i am afraid to talk about this, but have wanted to for a long while. i don't see a lot of people discuss this kind of thing, but i decided to do so for the me who was struggling and didn't know. also i have no idea where i am going with this and it's very late for me rn so here's a whole ass ramble on vent art. and also a bit more on how it's impacting how i view my art, now. i am terribly sorry if it's not very cohesive, my thoughts on it aren't yet cohesive either WOOPS

i wanted to talk a bit about how vent art really impacted my mental health, and how the idea that art needs some kind of meaning to have meaning really has been weighing on me lately (i know this is a concept i am assigning to my work and is not actually the norm/standard expectation of others consuming art. but it IS a sentiment i have seen enough that does impact me).

i want to specify, obviously i am not saying vent art is bad.

nor that doing vent pieces, or vent blogs, will ultimately result in what i went through for a number of years. rather, that this did happen to me, and there is a near impossible chance i am a unique case in any experience i will ever have. if you do vent art and it helps you, that's good! im not judging anyone for anything here. if your experience does not match my own, that's what it's like to be human~. i am not invalidating anyone on purpose by sharing my own experience. sorry for the insane disclaimer but it will eat me alive if i go to sleep thinking "what if they think x cuz i didn't say y and think im a terrible person"

---

i used to do vent art frequently (you won't find much on here as it was uploaded to a personal at the time). anytime i felt down or had a line of dialogue in my head making me feel bad in a way, i would draw for it. but the way i had interacted with it was really unhealthy. it became a terrible feedback loop where i'd feel bad, draw how i felt bad, look at the art, and ruminate even more on how i felt bad, until it spiralled so out of control i would lose touch with reality and get lost entirely in feeling like garbage.

i would just get so lost in the cycle with vent art that it would make my mental space worse and worse, and i would use the vent art as a negative confirmation bias. the words that hurt me i wrote down and anytime i looked again, they would hurt me again. but i would keep looking, and i would keep drawing.

i have always used art as an outlet, but for some reason the way vent art impacted me was unhealthy. it wasn't a good outlet. and it took me years to cut ties with it. i relied on vent art for a long time, but it took a lot of introspection and thinking to realise it wasn't the release i thought it was. and it was hard to let go, too.

i haven't touched the blog in a few months, now. i haven't done much vent art at all since then and genuinely, i've been doing SOOO much better. i no longer ruminate nearly as much as i had done so, i no longer get caught in a feedback loop that lasts for days to weeks. i still feel like garbage like people tend to do, but i don't put myself in a cycle over it anymore. i have gone back to it a few times in moments of desperation, but what used to be every week/every few weeks is now once a month maybe. and not to the extent at all (i would oftentimes post ~20 images in one night, before).

but i keep thinking about how, while the way i had done vent art was bad for my mental health, i keep feeling that just because i do sparkly cute and happy drawings, now, or drawings with no real meaning, that my art has nothing beyond face value... i do like a lot of my vent art. i think their compositions, or hidden messages and meanings, or colour use, was interesting.

but it wasn't worth the price for me.

so i am a bit caught in an in-between, here. my favourite form of art is the expression of love-you liked something so much, you dedicated time to draw it. and yet i cannot ascribe that to my own work very often. i think that man i wish i could make art with some kind of deeper meaning, that speaks to people, that's more than just pretty colours or shiny shading or a character everyone likes, or a character i like. but i just... don't know if it's for me.

ultimately, i could develop a healthy relationship with expressing and exploring negative emotions or experiences through art, but... do i want to? do i have to? do i need to? is it not enough to just draw something because... i like it..?

of course, the answer is yes, draw what you want, draw how you want, it's your art. but i am still trying to come to terms with that idea. i dont want to be seen as some shallow artist who just draws what's cute and pretty because they can and it's all they can think of, but like what if that's just what i like to draw??

in the end, that alone is good enough, drawing because you like to, because it's fun, because you like the thing you're dedicating time to creating for. it's just hard to grapple with after discarding a type of art that i felt was the only way i drew "for real".

anyways i am sorry this is soooo fucking long, and for all the clarifications (IM STILL NOT SAYING VENT ART BAD AND EVERYONE WILL DO WHAT I DID!! Dx) and the fact i had no real point here (probably)

anyways i will continue to draw what i want because i like to, as i have always been.

[shinesurge]

I'm sitting around waiting for our car to get serviced so I'm gonna take a minute to write a post I've been chewing on for a little bit lol

I think! A lot of creators talk about 'word of mouth' being the best advertising and it's TRUE they are right but I'm not sure the actual like, function of that is getting across because people still get confused about it when I bring it up, and I keep seeing people frustrated that their efforts aren't working (notably in spaces like the obscure webcomic tournament). Recommending stuff to your friends or writing stuff in to promotional spaces DEFINITELY helps don't stop doing that, but what people ACTUALLY mean by this is getting Visibly Excited about things in spaces where it can break containment.

Fandom content is what gets people into things!! Like, think about everything that "takes off" online; it's not because people post the plot synopsis over and over, or go "please read this it's good," the stuff that actually gets people engaging is seeing some cool fan work or clipped out content and going what the FUCK is that. The Barbie movie probably would have done fine on its own, but the insane phenomenon it's become certainly wouldn't have happened if regular internet users hadn't memed it to hell and back; this stuff works.

I didn't give a SHIT about Persona 5, or The Magnus Archives, or The Adventure Zone or any number of things I got dragged into until I saw fandom content for them. Persona 5 sounds like boring as fuck anime shit on paper, I do NOT care about podcasts, but people kept drawing the COOLEST stuff for them or posting insane fan theories until I HAD to know what was going on. That's what we're talking about with word of mouth! Sincere engagement with the thing is better than any advertising could ever be.

It doesn't have to be creative art or writing either! Make Character Appreciation Posts using the source material! Make an essay-length analysis of the story's themes! Set up a weekly post about how much you love a character or a count of how many days it's been since someone showed up, do Incorrect Quotes or paste tumblr text posts over characters, idk man there's entire blogs dedicated to posting every One Piece panel that has certain characters in it, there are no rules

What I'm saying is if you're wanting to help out smaller creators, please get involved, and PLEASE do it outside insulated places like discord servers. A thriving community that only exists inside a closed server still looks like a ghost town from the outside. "please read this it's got lesbians" helps get something on the radar, making a compilation post of the lesbians and posting it with a link to The Thing gets people's attention.

anyway that's all thanks @ Fans Of All Kinds for caring enough to want to help out independent people to the point i felt like it was worth making a post like this; to be clear, nobody is owed any of this stuff and you're certainly not obligated to put in all this effort to enjoy a thing! but i know a LOT of people are enthusiastic about indie media and want to help out, and sometimes a little extra guidance from the creator perspective helps them figure out how to do that effectively. love you have a good day

[nightwing-95]

Happy Birthday to Nightwing and happy birthday to ME. That’s right my birthday is a day before Nightwings so I decided I would make this blog dedicated to the fantastic Flying Grayson.

So I got the Nightwing 1995 compendium for Christmas and have been working my way through this massive book. And I have been enjoying it although I also have OPINIONS. So I decided to make this lil blog dedicated to it! And will extend into other comics as I read them.

This is actually my first time reading comics. I didn’t know where to start or what to read so I told my dad ‘I want Nightwing’ and he went ‘okay’ and found me the biggest book of Nightwing comics hahaha.

So far I’m about halfway through. So here is my opinions on some of em so far! Would have taken more pictures but there is a limit!

Nightwing: The Resignation

I know of this man Greg Land. But I have only seen the worst of his art from the blog ‘Bad Comic Art’. But this guy actually is a good artist normally it seems. I like the art here a lot. I like his pretty hair and shiny suit. I like this random goon from the start with the vampire hair.

The story so far is neat! Dickies striking out on his own. He QUITS superheroing which is wild to me.

‘What should I do with it’ (the Nightwing suit)

‘Put it in a trophy case’

UH. DICK THING TO SAY! (BADUM TSK)

But I do really enjoy the classic comic art style from these first few issues.

Favourite Panel:

*eyebrow wiggle*

Anyway this issue was just setup. Onto the next one!

Nightwing: The renewal

So Dickies retirement lasts 0.5 seconds but good on him for trying. Some blond twink is our enemy here and he is… so lame. I don’t like this guy at all hes a loser. Loving Dickies polka dot shirt however.

They made him so hairy here though lmao.

The colorist also does not seem to know whether Miggy (WHAT kind of name) has red hair or brown hair. Theres this whole plot where ‘whoops turns out your parents were murdered not by Tony Zucco but some other guy who may be in charge of a whole country’ which… I mean I like the whole Tony Zucco thing I enjoy that part of his backstory. So I was not fond of this implication.

The blond twink tries to kill Dickie but he’s kind of a bumbling idiot. We live in a world with guys like Deathstroke and Deadshot and you hire this dude??? Okay. I guess to be fair they thought Dick was just some guy and don’t know he is literally a superhero lmao.

The way they narrate everything is kinda hilarious like theres a text box describing what we are looking at every panel it’s ridiculous but get that coin John Costanza.

We get to see Barbra!!!!! I thought we would see way more of her in these stories but it seems later they try to move away from Dickbabs and give him some new random love interests I don’t care about. I will enjoy her presence while shes is here.

Sorry WHOMPST is HAROLD?!?!?! Did Lucious Fox not exist yet???????? This man is irrelevant anyway and does not appear again. He scares me…

Favourite panel:

KACHOW!

Dickie goes to Europe to find out who ACTUALLY killed his mom and dad and are trying to kill him. Fun typical superhero shenanigans.

BUT WAIT theres also a GENOCIDE HAPPENING?!?! WHAT?!?!?!

Things got dark real fast lmao.

Nightwing: The Oublette

Weird thing to wonder but how did they do white text over top the artwork before they had digital editing.

A lot of good action in this one I am a big fan of the action scenes in this one.

I like how earlier in this series he was like ‘I am serious now. I am a serious guy. But he literally cannot stop cracking jokes in his head until eventually he just can’t help himself and let’s one slip out loud.

The sheer insanity of this form of torture is so ridiculously comic book. I like it.

They lather you in honey then drop you in a hole to be eaten by rats.

Favourite panel(s):

Such a pretty and fun way to show him regaining consciousness.

I literally can’t add anymore pictures so we’ll do the rest of Oublette and also Dead Simple in another post! So far this short series has been my favourite in the entire compendium.

Follow me and join my journey experiencing comic books for the first time! I’ll post the second half of this review tomorrow on Nightwings actual birthday.

[miru667]

hiii!! miruu it's me (AGHDG again) i wanted to tell you that....in ur drawing celebrating a decade for the Onceler fandom you left a link to another publication and I BARELY NOTICED IT T-T... but well the topic is uhmmm

i wanted to say how much i adore that you shared that with us aaaandd HOW I LOVE THE DEDICATION YOU PUT TO YOUR DRAWINGS!!! LIKE every line you made- for example the lines you did on the old onceler's suit, GOD and his chain WHAT (i always go to that drawing because you don't know the feelings it transmits to me) i loved what you say about Onceler Aftermath, about what it represents regarding the fandom and how you added so many references that i know are very significant and nostalgic for the fandom and the people who formed it at the time

apart from that i love that you mentioned everything you referenced in the drawing!!thaaanks for that, i must say that i did not know many of them and i even ended up reading one of the ask blogs that you cited hehe

and the fact that it took you 6 MONTHS AAAAA this drawing deserves to be framed in gold

i REALLYYY love reading the history of this fandom and what it means to you...and i know that even though i wasn't there, i can feel the love you have for all of this

im glad that a person like you is still in this, and willing to explain and convey to new travelers (like me) what all this is :")))

and before i go i would like to ask you a question since i read all this ^^

at the beginning of the fandom... did you ever imagine what would come to be formed and then continue to have an impact on people???

THAT'S ALL AAAA A HUGEEE APOLOGYY for the length of the menssage but there were so many things to say TuT that i didn't even say some , reading the entire post made me smile and inspired

SHAKOOOOOOO 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺😭😭😭 Thank you for reading that behind-the-scenes post omg that means a lot to me TTWTT... it's okay if you didn't notice it before, it's because I only recently attached the link onto the main post AGJSGUD BUT STILL like??? The fact that you've been coming back to that zine piece is so 🥺🧡 it makes me happy that someone likes it that much!! Sgjhjd yes I went pretty insane for this picture since it was the COVER so I felt a lot of pressure! 😭 It was a zine to celebrate 10 years of the fandom so I wanted to draw something to represent those 10 years, and so I decided to play to my strengths and take advantage of my knowledge of fandom history :,)...thank goodness they gave us plenty of time to finish our pieces dchgjd

And for your question: NO I absolutely had no idea what the future held back then, nor did i think about it! In 2012 I simply lived for the moment, moment to moment in a state of obsession. I don't think anyone can predict how things will be looked back on in 11 years while you're just enjoying the moment in present time. The way people engage with fandom stuff has shifted greatly in the past decade, attitudes about "cringe" keep changing too, things that are hilarious to us right now could be seen as problematic in another 10 years and vice versa in ways that you're unable to conceive of at present. People have gotten art careers thanks to improving their art through the onceler fandom, others have gotten married to someone they met through the fandom, and others have been traumatized and feel weird when they see old fandom posts being reblogged...there was no way I could've predicted any of that at the beginning. It was my first fandom, tumblr was still relatively new, and the internet was a very very different place! And I was also a very different person.

[thesims4blogger]

Sims Delivery Express Brings Vitiligo Options to CAS

The Sims 4 had a new Sims Delivery Express (SDX) drop that brought new vitiligo options to Create a Sim (CAS). As always, this game update is free of charge and available across all platforms.

There’s a total of 21 new features for sims faces as well as 16 options for other parts of their bodies. You may find them all under “skin details”. Advertisement

At its release, The Sims put out a new video narrated by Canadian model Winnie Harlow, who has vitiligo in real life. You can watch it below, followed by a new Community Blog posted on The Sims 4 website.

Vitiligo Skin Feature in The Sims 4

Developer talks about the new update and Winnie Harlow collaboration

Sul Sul, Simmers! I’m Ash and I’m thrilled to introduce you to the newest addition to Skin Details in Create-A-Sim: Vitiligo!

Skin Details in The Sims 4

Skin details are an important area of focus for the dev team as we remain committed to expanding representation in The Sims 4. Birthmarks, stretch marks, scars, and freckles have empowered our players to tell diverse and authentic stories, and today’s update continues with these efforts. We have known for a while we wanted to add Vitiligo to the game, and we spent a lot of time learning about it and considering how to authentically provide it to players.

Bringing Vitiligo In-Game

When it came to Vitiligo in The Sims, we knew we wanted to start with providing a range of patterns showing different levels of coverage and symmetry. Our Concept Artist and Art Director collaborated to design a diverse set of patterns across faces, torso sections, and limbs. In our research, we found that depigmentation may have clear edges and some edges may be darker and irregular. Affected skin can be absolutely white, or can be pink or varying shades lighter than the surrounding skin. Since vitiligo affects people of all ethnicities and skin types, our Senior Character Artist intentionally created the first assets to work with a Sim’s skin tone. As you cycle through the shades and change from warm to neutral to cool, the color of your Sim’s Vitiligo will adjust to change with it.

Vitiligo can begin to appear early in infancy and as you age your patches can expand and change, so we knew we wanted to provide this feature to all ages, from infants to elder Sims. The patterns of patches could warp in shape if they were simply converted for each frame of Sim, so our Character Artist who expanded the selection ensured that they stayed consistent across bodies. In all, our artists developed 61 Vitiligo variants across all ages for this first release. Our team of developers, dedicated to The Sims 4 Base Game, is beyond grateful for the talent and time provided to us by the artists and their dedication to the quality of every asset they create.

How It Works

After you download today’s update, you’ll find the new Vitiligo assets in Create-A-Sim. Go to the Skin Details category for either the Face or Body. The new assets will show up right before the Birthmarks that were delivered with the Growing Together Base Game update. You can choose patches for your Sim’s face, upper torso, lower torso, arms, and legs. Several Vitiligo patterns will have more than one variant – you can choose whether you want to start with a less prominent part of the pattern at first or start with the full pattern. All ages will have access to the same pieces, so your choices can stay the same as they age or you can change them over time.

Winnie Harlow Partnership

The Sims 4 team is partnering with supermodel and beauty entrepreneur Winnie Harlow to introduce this new update. Winnie, who was an avid The Sims player during her youth, is excited to share styling and interior design inspiration with players through an original content piece that showcases a Simified version of the fashion model’s Hollywood home. She gives a room-by-room tour of her dream home and talks about what this level of in-game representation with the Vitiligo feature means to her. Simmers can download her home from the gallery as well as play with the Winnie-inspired Sim.

“It’s magical to see The Sims 4 team introduce this new Vitiligo feature,” Winnie said. “As a child, I spent a lot of time playing The Sims and I think it’s so beautiful to be able to represent your true self in-game. This partnership is a powerful statement encouraging players to embrace what makes them unique – both in-game and in real life.”

F.A.Q.

Can I choose the color of my Sim’s Vitiligo?

Not quite. Although all patterns contrast greatly with your Sim’s skin, the exact color of the Vitiligo patches depends on the hue and tone of the skin color you choose. If you change a warm skin tone to a cool one, the color of the Vitiligo reflects this.

Can I change my Sim’s Vitiligo pattern? Or, can I add or remove it later?

Yes, you can change, add, or remove any of the Vitiligo patterns by returning to Create-A-Sim and doing so in the Skin Details section.

Can the shape of the Sim’s pattern change based on their body?

Yes. Skin Details will adjust some depending on where you stretch or move their skin or body parts. If you widen a Sim’s nose, and they have a patch of Vitiligo across it, the patch will change with it.

Will Vitiligo affect my Sim during gameplay?

No. Like the Birthmarks feature, Vitiligo patterns will not have any effects on gameplay.

Can Vitiligo layer with other Skin Details?

Vitiligo can layer with all Face and Body details except Birthmarks. You can also use Tattoos and Body Hair with them.

Why can’t Vitiligo layer with Birthmarks?

Vitiligo uses the same tech as Birthmarks, so they will act the same way. You can’t layer multiple Birthmarks, and they don’t automatically transition between frames (younger to older, feminine to masculine). Teens will keep the same Skin Details for the rest of their lives though, as long as they use the same frame.

Will Vitiligo affect my Sim’s Body Hair color?

No. We hope to address the ability of Vitiligo to affect hair color in the future, but at this time, vitiligo will only apply to skin.

[majorbaby]

very very long rant

when i first left tumblr after the porn ban, the sjw stuff was starting to plateau, but you still had big bloggers ironically calling themselves misandrists in bio. I say ironically because unlike an open misogynist, an open misandrist cannot amass vast structural power, they instead will remain on the fringes of society. before they can even be shunned in the mainstream or the elite, they're being shunned by their own peers.

at that time, there was a lot of popular blogs run by (sometimes allegedly) racialized people or "poc-run spaces" like thisisnot[country] and blogs specifically dedicated to pointing out cultural appropriation. i personally contributed to the reclaimthebindi which in retrospect seemed inspired by blackout selfie day (not to be confused with thr subsequent 'blackout' posts associated with BLM - that was later), altho idk to what extent the south asian diasporic community (of which i am a part of) actually paid homage to the black blogger/s responsible for blackout day.

now many of those blogs are defunct or have been scrubbed from level-one searches of tumblr, and their history has not been well documented. it's hard to understand what the climate was unless you were there because not many secondary sources, like the one you're reading right now i suppose, exist. or they weren't well-circulated. this one won't be, i'm turning off reblogs i think.

this is, in my opinion, in contrast to other major trends in internet culture that inform offline social justice movements. that's your gxmxrgxte (so well-ingrained in my memory that it still upsets me enough to censor today), metoo and the annual around ao3's right to host any and all content with very limited few exceptions.

reclaimthebindi is still up, so are a few of the thisisnot blogs, but you can't really tell that they were all interconnected, a part of the same zeitgeist. i have a few theories as to why, and which one you pick depends on how generous you are when imagining the people who ran these blogs. some of them for sure were run by bored college students seeking an outlet. some of them were denied recognition by their offline peers because of racism, so it felt good to find a space where they could actually amass social capital on the basis of the very thing that disadvantaged them in every other space. some were concerned with punitive justice, others with restorative justice. some just posted black and brown bodies so that those images would exist on the internet somewhere. some were run by racefacing white people who also felt like outcasts offline, and saw a quick and easy way to be embraced elsewhere. it's possible that some people did it for a combination of these reasons.

whatever benefits there may have been, it wasn't enough to keep the momentum going. very few put out 'retirement' statements, most just stopped posting and were eventually purged. tbh, i see the draw in airing your grievances all in one place, but it's exhausting, and eventually your supporters grow tired of the negativity, and you grow tired of the negativity too. that's why i think it's usually better to stick to posting and sharing the stuff you love, not the stuff you hate, or at least, find a balance. though their presence is much, much smaller, creator networks for women, lgtbq, and racialized people have sprung up, and so have spaces where people post and repost art that engages with class, race, gender etc.

but it still feels like racialized people have a much quieter voice on tumblr. i have to rely on stumbling upon them naturally, which is next to impossible, especially if you're on tumblr for a small to medium sized fandom, which i think most fandoms are these days. your supermassive fandoms - doctor who, sherlock, kpop, harry potter, the mcu, also no longer dominate the site. i would still say tumblr is the big fandom site, but a lower user count means that the internet's fandom site is smaller than before.

so, less users in general, and any existing minority shrinks. and if we're talking racialized people who are lgtbq, that's an even smaller minority.

this in my opinion has contributed in a major way to the backlash against feminism, the idea that "terfs ruined feminism" with the subtle suggestion that feminism has perhaps failed, or was never really good to begin with, and a laser focus on terfs as the ones responsible as though the mainstream, patriarchal, cis-heteronormative bloc had absolutely nothing to do with it. or the ludicrous idea that terfs are the mainstream, patriarchal cis-heteronormative bloc. two things can be bad, that doesn't mean they're the same thing.

anyway! a big part of the original tumblr feminist movement was not just the "poc run blog" but in the "woc run blog". "poc" was absorbed into BIPOC, and "woc" is a legacy term. your woc were regularly venting about how being a woman of colour means choosing between your race and your gender, putting up with the misogyny of the racialized men in your life who you show up for constantly but who throw you under the bus when the white man asks them how high to jump. now there's white lgbtq bloggers all over the place asking whether you "include black and brown men when you said you say men are trash?" (yes, i absolutely am) and if you ask that question to a room full of white people, they're all going to keep their mouths shut because they don't want to appear racist.

well, white men do not have a monopoly on misogyny. misogyny levied at racialized women by racialized men is a huge intra-community barrier to trying to organize against racism and white supremacy. it is extremely upsetting to see white people suggest that racialized women, lgbtq people and children are not oppressed by the racialized men in their own communities. that we are not survivors of domestic abuse, sexual abuse or that we do not endure oppression under patriarchy in the home, workplace and in society inflicted upon us by our own kin, which compounds upon what we already absorb from white people.

and they can go on doing so on here because many racialized women have shut up and gone away. even running blogs aimed around celebrating themselves has become a service to white consumers that they've done thanklessly for years. just to hear that actually, they have no right to say "men are trash" because what if the brown man that abused them or their mom or their aunties overhears and gets his feelings hurt. didn't we discern the difference between hurt feelings and systemic oppression almost fifteen years ago on tumblr dot com?

like, sure, maybe we should adjust "women only spaces" to be "spaces for women and trans people" but we can do that and not pretend that we have absolutely no idea why women live in fear of men, or that a reasonable amount of fear is completely unwarranted.

man it is one thing to come back here to find all the, admittedly, sometimes kind of annoying sjw blogs around race gone, and another to see a resurgence of popular MRA talking points. but i see how that's happened. racialized women are done talking about this, and who can blame them. white women, and i wish i only meant cis women, get slapped with 'terf' the second they open their mouths, so they are also done talking about this.

if you managed to read all of this please be a little careful when reblogging posts that are critical of feminism. yes, there are a few bad-faith actors within feminism, but feminists in general are a minority group, even if it doesn't feel that way on tumblr. think about it, how long has it been since you saw someone with 'feminist' in bio? is it a good thing to keep facilitating this growing resentment against feminism? has feminism done nothing for us? should we toss it out with the bathwater?

[sickcroww30]

i found out today you deactivated your side blog and i was sad because all the beautiful art there is gone, but regardless of the reason you had to delete it i just want you to know all the stuff you create is awesome and you're a big inspo, i hope you have a nice week!

Thank you anon for the support, I'm sad that it's gone but it's for the better of my mental health.

I finally bring myself to answer this because a lot is going on in my mind and I don't know how I should put it into words. For anyone who doesn't know about its existence, don't read, not because it's embarrassing but because it may sound very weird without any context.

[rant below, wall of text]

To begin with, I'd like to thank everyone who has been following its growth from the start of it to its final end. I created the blog not only to freely show my (judge-able) interests but also more of my personal thoughts rather than having to keep this one publicly behaved. It was fun and I was super dedicated to what I was making. I poured my time and effort into it, and it quickly became an important part of my life back in 2021-2022.

I thought that if I show people what I like then I might find someone who shares the same idea. But maybe because of being so dedicated to it, it turned into a portrayal of a lonely delusional individual, or at least that's what I think I look like.

I don't blame anyone for this but myself. I thought that maybe it was because I didn't do well enough, or that I didn't make appealing posts, maybe people didn't like what I was doing and that's why there was so little interaction I got. I needed to do better I needed to be more open and show the followers that I'm easy to talk to, please engage with me. Stuff like that. So I pushed it and hurt myself in the process. In the end, I felt so lost and clueless. I even said things I shouldn't say, being harsh with my choices. I was struggling both with real-life matters and with the blog itself. I tried to keep up by posting other stuff that were not the main focus, still, I couldn't help but finalize my decision to deactivate the blog once and for all.

In the end, it was supposed to be fun but it wasn't enjoyable at all. I love to see my art development every time I scroll through the blog. And sometimes read the replies and tags in old posts. I'm sorry that I deleted it, I miss it too, but I don't want to look back at it seeing the person I became because of its existence. I do still and forever appreciate the love that everyone has given to it.

[beautyandfury]

Introduction post.🏵️🗣️

Hello! I'm Reena.

I am a 19 year old business student.

This blog will be dedicated to journaling my journey in learning and pursuing art.

(SELF TAUGHT from YouTube videos)

I'm still an extreme beginner as the first thing I had ever drawn not as a child was on February 4th (this Sunday haha).

For the past eight months or so, I've been getting these INTENSE urges to create something. Anything really. But looking back I think I've always wanted to create and print my thoughts somehow onto paper.

It's like my brain is begging me to put something of me out there in the world, Not just art or a drawing but also words, but often times a lot of things hold me back. Maybe doubt in my abilities and desires? Do I really want to do that or is it just a new hyper fixation and I'll get bored of it and leave it entirely to dust on my shelf? Something to ease my boredom and keep me busy somehow?

Where should I start?

Am I a person who should chase art? or as they say an "artistic" person?

Who will share my interests? There's absolutely no one due to my lack of friends and how art in general is looked down upon in our society as something unstable and not the "safe" path to ensure yourself a future. For now, my sister is here and she's supporting me (I love her so much) but no one in the art community itself.

But alas! Here I am and my desire to create has overwhelmed all the doubts and I actually drew my first 3D cylinder this Sunday!

This blog is meant to record every step, my progress and weaknesses so I can grow and leave a piece of me somewhere so I won't go mad lol.

Criticism is always welcome (constructive and respectful).

I want to have as many friends as possible whom we could share ideas and grow together in our journey. I really really want to learn a lot and honour the ideas in my brain by giving them an another entire world, A piece of paper.💮

As you might have sensed it, English is not my first language so I apologise for any mistakes or errors.

Thank you for reading this 🏵️

[5ivebyfive]

read your blogs about chapter 12 possibly being the last chapter of shut up and drive and got concerned. after putting it off for a while due to being busy and just... unmotivated to consume any content, i decided to finally give it a read. spent practically the entire day reading it. let's just say i did not expect to get as invested as i did. i've been hyperfixating on power rangers 2017 for a while now, but with the lack of new content, i was slowly losing interest (which absolutely broke my heart, because i truly adore this movie). however, reading shut up and drive has gotten me right back into it. this fic is genuinely my favorite piece of work on ao3. i have so much admiration and love for it. i practically felt... every single emotion i could possibly feel while reading it. needless to say i was in tears for a lot of it (i cry due to, like, every strong emotion i feel, and i felt a lot of strong emotions reading shut up and drive. jesus christ i'm just a wreck after the ending of the last chapter). changed my entire discord layout to match it, and am currently in the process of changing my phone's layout as well. yes, i loved it that much. it made me wonder why i hadn't read it sooner. as a starving trimberly fan, i've been lingering on your blog for a while now. sent a few anonymous asks here and there. read a lot of your work on ao3. i just feel really guilty for not commenting and interacting as much as i should've. i guess i was... scared to? i don't know. i've never really been good at describing my love for things, and i didn't quite know how to properly comment on your blogs and work in the first place. not to mention the irrational fear that i had of being "annoying". i know this is a little long, but all of this is basically just a way for me to make up for not praising your work sooner. i know how much of a bitch writer's block can be, and despite the fact that i hadn't even read shut up and drive when i saw your recent blogs, i was really saddened by the fact that it was coming to an end. that's what motivated me to read it in the first place. you've had so much passion for it, and it was genuinely so inspiring. i really want to try interacting with your posts more, which is also why i've decided to send this ask non-anonymously. feeling like you're posting into a void is one of the worst feelings, speaking as someone who's never really been in "active" fandoms (for some reason). you're definitely not alone in this fanbase. i want to try to post some of my own work as well, which is something i wouldn't have even considered if it wasn't for you. thank you for everything you've done for the power rangers 2017 fandom. thank you for every single fic, every single chapter, and every single blog you've made related to it. words can't describe the joy your work has given me. i have so much work to do, yet spent the day reading shut up and drive instead. i don't regret a thing.

Wow! This message is so wonderful, thank you! I don't even know what to say in reply.

I really appreciate your dedication to my little story. It means so much to me. I'm completely obsessed with this fic right now so it feels good to know I'm not alone.

When I say I miss interaction it's not about wanting more comments. I appreciate any comments I get. I may have used the wrong word. Like...I miss activity. I miss following blogs that post about the movie and Trimberly. I miss people reblogging things. Especially fic and art. Though maybe more so fic. I do think art gets more reblogs than fic does. Which it deserves! But fic deserves it, too.

I miss there being a community and people to talk to. I miss us sending each other asks and talking about headcanons and everything. It's just not the same as it was, and everyone has moved on. It's hard to be one of the people still holding on when most people have left.

I don't think chapter 12 will be the last. I just can't do that to this fic. It deserves the justice I had planned for it. It's amazing that you're so devoted to it! Thank you!

I guess I'm not leaving the fandom. I just get frustrated. It feels like there are so few people left, and even the friends I thought I'd made regardless of fandom have faded out, and that hurts.

I just...really miss it all. But I'm glad that I'm not alone yet, and I'm so appreciative for everyone who still reads my fic and my blog.

[blockednddeleted]

Start of Something New

Hi.

It's December 16th 2024. 3:39 AM. The world seems to be on some sort of cataclysmic downwards spiral, heading to some kind of disaster that will have us remembering these horrible moments we're living atm as the idyllic "before times." So, now seems like the perfect time to start something new, to take steps on my personal journey of growth and healing by putting myself out there. Or rather, further out into the digital world, a world I've been desperately terrified of since forever...in a time of international crises and turmoil — I have excellent timing.

But the "right" time was never going to happen. And as the years have ticked on and I've gotten older and older, I realized the only person that's been holding me back from the things I want in life is me. This is something I’ve been meaning to do for a long time, and I’m finally doing it! Taking this step of creating a dedicated tumblr to share my art, my thoughts, and a piece of myself in this space.

Now, don't go misunderstanding me here, I've been on tumblr for ages. But I've existed mostly as a kind of lurker for way longer than I would care to admit. Rather than, say, being an active participant. I kept meaning to do that and *this* for ages. Sometimes I would get really close but then panic and bail. I struggle a lot with fear around putting myself out there. Well, all the fear really. The fear of being seen, fear of not being seen, fear of making mistakes, and fear of losing control. Fear, fear, fear. Fear has had more control over my life than me for too long now and I'm sick and tired of it. It was unfortunate that I first encountered this site when I did. During the really awful days of tumblr, when it was really really toxic. It really helped the fear have a unbreakable titanium grip on me for decades.

Not that the internet has gotten less toxic since then, if anything it's gotten even more dangerous and hateful. Though the vibe on tumblr does seem to have become a lot more chill since then. I may be wrong about that, but I was here for the fountain chocolate parrot thing, so I'm pretty confident. The main thing that's led to *this* has just been exhaustion. The constant fear takes a toll, and constantly being terrified is fucking exhausting. and seeing how I've nearly died in complete silence a couple times now, I'm at the point now that I'm like, fuck it. If I keep waiting for this supposed "perfect" moment my anxious brain constantly says there is, at this rate, I'll be dead and gone before it ever happens.

So here's to saying fuck it, let's do this!

I intend to keep this blog as a place for me to share my art, thoughts, and writing — personal, fandom-related, my own work, or otherwise. I already have an instagram which I've been posting to every so often. I don't really get a lot of interaction over there. But that was kind of why I started with that account first, I liked that it felt like a literal ghost town. I have no idea what I'm doing in that space, so weirdly, it felt safer than others. But I'm ready to come back to my home turf now.

I hope some of what I do here will resonate with someone out there, but even if nothing I do here reaches anybody, I’ll be proud of myself for trying. For daring to exist.

If you’re reading this, thank you for being here.

Here’s to starting, even when it's scary — hell, even when it's downright terrifying.

To finish this post off, I've included a little doodle I did the day after the election. That was a dark day. But then I crossed paths with a dragonfly. It was a rare encounter so I took notice. I'm not a religious person by any stretch of the imagination, but I do care to notice little things like this, even if the skeptical grouch in my mind wants to huff and wheeze about it.

So, that night, when I was feeling sad and remembered seeing the dragonfly, I looked up what it's been thought to symbolize and needing to create something, anything, as a reminder that this darkness was only temporary, that life was still worth living, I drew this. I didn't have my drawing things or even a blank sheet of paper. Only a pad of lined paper and some crayola markers. Bud I'm so happy I still did. It may not be perfect, or particularly pretty or skilled, but it's mine. And that's all that counts.

[skelltan]

what is "fool's work?"

i am nothing if not introspective. every action i take is deliberate, meticulously planned out, and i am always seeking the steps i can take to better myself, define goals and pursue them.

i have had a lot of stop and start endeavors, and this is the latest in that; only, this is to be THE endeavor. this is the credo i use to dictate every piece of creative work i create from hereon out.

it's too easy to start and stop; if i am to tie all my works together through the lens of "fool's work", it'll allow me to introspect upon my work more and understand what i have done and what i want to do, whether it be to change direction or to continue what i've started. all of it is "fool's work", the work of the fool - not because i am idiotic, but because i am like the fool of tarot who always strives to learn. sometimes this will lead me to dead ends, other times it will lead to progress.

there were two main inspirations for this process; watching a video essay by "In Praise of Shadows" on youtube about the comic Strangehaven by Gary Spencer Millidge. truthfully, i've yet to finish the video, but i felt enough motivation from what i have watched to inspire myself. i found myself identifying greatly with millidge's drive to do something without caring about the scrutiny of publishers or material gain, and how he had dabbled in various other experiences - this contrasts with how dedicated he finds himself to his work.

that leads to my latter inspiration. unlike gary, i don't have the burdern to self print, publish, etc. i can simply publish what i wish on the internet. i've always admired early internet and how more insular it felt - this ties together with my general admiration for the idea of a community as opposed to how the internet has only divided us and left us strangers in our separate chambers, both online and in real life.

so, to put a long story short, that's what i wish to do - to categorize all my works in order to gain a better understanding of them, and to publish things online that i truly wish to pursue rather than view art as a trade, and if anyone likes it, that's a bonus, whether that be any friends i show or random online onlookers.

if i were to distill it into three main points, which i will not further articulate too far, as i feel i have done so adequately already; fool's work is:

passion projects

malleable

never the focus of my life

i will expand on the final point; i may go months without updating something, for example, but it may not be dead; it ties back to the first point of being a passion project and the prior point of it being non commercial. i will not stress myself to do something because i have a ravenous fanbase or i have bills to pay. my work is primarily to indulge in my creative impulses with no bounds whatsoever first and foremost. i will not struggle trying to perfect my craft until i create a masterpiece that will make me rich, only to worry about how to follow it up. any possible praise, fandom or monetary gain that may result from this will always be secondary, such is fool's work.

if it was not clear, any time i create a piece of work i feel is complete enough to post, i will post it on this blog via this tag. however, due to the malleable nature of fool's work, the "main hub" of where i post is subject to change, such as if i find an avenue more suitable than tumblr - but if that is the case, i will make it known.

otherwise, i feel these are very good ground rules to what fool's work is.