josephscoat

[josephscoat]

ai does not belong in creative spaces. period.

[josephscoat]

if people don't react to my art and writing with enthusiastic praise, i think it sucks.

if people react to my art and writing with enthusiastic praise, i think they're lying.

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[josephscoat]

I think people really, really need to learn the difference between "this story was Poorly Written" and "I had extremely specific expectations of what I wanted this story to be and was extremely disappointed that it went in a different direction."

Similarly, people need to learn the difference between "this character was written Out-of-Character" and "I built up so many headcanons for this particular character that I wound up with my own extremely specific interpretation of them and was extremely disappointed when those headcanons were jossed."

You are allowed to experience disappointment when stories don't go in the direction you want them to! But that is not the same thing as those stories being poorly written.

[josephscoat]

Tintin, and his time spent as a scout; a sister piece to this bullet essay that I wrote some time back | Jo presenting their other story called Tintin and the Cockchafers.

Tw/Cw: Bullying, Racism and Entomophobia trigger

Okay, a bit of background on the subject matter first; before Hergé created The Adventures of Tintin, he first wrote and illustrated a comic strip for the scout magazine Le Boy Scout Belge called The Adventures of Totor, Chief Scout of the Cockchafers, which ran from July 1926 to the summer of 1929.

Also, for those of you who are curious in what the hell a cockchafer is, it’s this absolute darling of a bug right here:

Cute, right? Cockchafers are a type of scarab beetle; they also go by the name May/June bug since they’re a prevalent summertime insect.

Returning back to our main topic, the strip followed Totor― a Belgian boy scout who travelled to visit his aunt and uncle in the US; upon arriving to, he encounters hostile Native American tribes and gangsters, whom he outwits before eventually heading back to Belgium.

If you haven’t noticed it already, the plot’s very much like that of Tintin in America which was published later in 1931.

Totor served as Tintin’s sort of prototype, if you will.

Hergé himself did state that he wanted Tintin to possess the traits of a boy scout since he loved and supported the movement― it’s also sort of known that he himself was a scout in his youth as well.

With all this to bear in mind, this leads to me just diving head first into headcanon category; me and a mutual have this shared headcanon that Tintin participated in the scouts as a kid.

This is also, sort of going to be like an intro post to my other story, Tintin and the Cockchafers; some world-building stuff and the likes will be mentioned in here.

I really liked Hergé's boy scout premise for Totor and was inspired to write a story about it (minus all the racism of course).

I like to imagine that the troop Tintin’s a part of, their ranking system is based off of different kinds of bugs and currently he’s a cockchafer; hence the story’s title.

I plan for this to be the typical coming-of-age story about Tintin going on a camping/hiking trip with the scouts.

This aforementioned trip takes place on the summer of the year he’s decided to run away from the orphanage that housed him, drop out of school, and pursue being a reporter full-time, shortly after he was promoted to it from being a paperboy.

The events of the trip were what finally pushed him to skedaddle out of there and live.

And boy did he make the right decision in doing so.

Tintin joins the scouts at around age 10 and stayed as an active member up until he was 14 (his age in Cockchafers).

While he is no longer a scout in uniform, he’s most definitely still a scout in action and in spirit, as you can see with his resourcefulness that permeates all throughout the comics.

I like to imagine that one of the reasons why he took the job as a paperboy was to save up enough money to buy materials for the uniform (e.g. fabric, buttons, elastics, etc.); since the official ones from the store were too expensive.

Mrs. Murphy, (this sort of hermit-librarian OC of mine from the oneshot I wrote back in March 2024; which I have a whole ‘nother series and set of headcanons just for her if you're interested) offered to tailor one for him since she's taken an interest in sewing lately— the rest of the materials he couldn't buy was bought by her out of pocket, (like the official pins/badges).

Tin’s obviously stoked since he’ll go out venturing into the great outdoors; sleeping under the stars and being ‘one with nature’ all that jazz.

He’s been cooped up for too long in that orphanage and feels oppressed whenever he’s at school by the other kids and adults…

The older boy scouts bully him for two reasons; first reason for being a quote/unquote pansy —the second reason is because of him surpassing them in almost every single one of the scout activities lol

They're sour because someone significantly smaller and younger than them is quicker and better at first aid/setting up tents/making a fire/tying knots and other typical camp activities of the like than all of them combined.

I have a gut feeling that Tintin would manage to snag all the boy scout badges in like, give or take, a day — the kid's a walking Swiss army knife for crying out loud! (Carrying and making good use these skills up into adulthood).

And he doesn't even mean to outdo them, he's just that more efficient at doing these kinds of things since he does them a lot during his free time.

Especially in knot tying— have you seen this kid tie up crooks with anything that remotely resembles a chord???

And how do you think he's able to sneak in and out of the orphanage without getting caught? By making a rope via tying his blankets and bedsheets together of course!

This leads to my other headcanon that after he mastered knot tying, it segued into him getting into fibre arts like macramé and crochet which he does with the girl scouts.

I just know that once he's manage to collect all the boy scout badges, he'll try to collect all the girl scout badges next.

The older girl scouts love him; they see him as a little brother figure and honourary member which is the sweetest thing.

He and his scoutmaster (I won't introduce him just yet because of spoiler reasons) are pretty close, with him trying his best to look out for Tintin, since he knows that the kid is being bullied but won't say a word about who's been doing it to him.

Throughout the trip he tries to figure it out. (He does eventually guys, dw)

The other boys mistake their connection for... something else... and think that Tintin's leeching off their scoutmaster to get extra merits which made their harassment more vicious.

The insults they throw being laced with more venom; them tripping him up and shoving past him are done with increasing aggression each time, etc.

There's this one scene I have planned where they knock him unconscious and tie him to a tree.

[josephscoat]

Tag game🎉

Tag your moots and ask them where they got the idea for their tumblr accounts name!

For my name it was a nickname I was giving back in middleschool! One of our teacher had a system where we worked with 'wifi' eachtime we talked in class we lost a bar of the "wifi" (was a weird joke and we never held count on that) All the kids usually joked if they needed 'wifi' , they would borrow mine if they wanted to talk more. (I was incredibly shy in middle school, I only talked to like 3 people at school;^;)

They called me Ms. Wifi because of that. I just thought it would be funny if I put 'miss' instead of 'ms' because of my terrible actual wifi connection I have at home lol.

That's my story! Now moots, only if you guys want to, tell us your story.

Tags-> @slipping-lately @firequeenofficial @noagskryf @twinklstarrrr @halfbakedspuds @polterwasteist @rokushi-san @mygedagtes +anyone that sees this and wants to do this as well

[josephscoat]

If you’re having writers block…READ!!!! CONSUME MEDIA

I feel like I don’t hear that given enough as advice for writers block..just read? Watch tv? Movies? Find inspiration in media.

Writers block is a lack of inspiration, so go collect more.

[josephscoat]

nobody talks about the fact that you can have all this crazy shit in your head, and want to open up and talk about your feelings but no matter what, you just can't make out the right words and properly put your thoughts and emotions into words

[josephscoat]

being a writer means spending 4 hours researching obscure facts for a single sentence no one will notice.

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One of the most ironic things I find about writing is that it is one of the most self-isolating socially-oriented pastimes I could possibly have. It is an activity that is fundamentally about communicating to other people, with language as the medium, and hoping to connect to them, and yet to actually do it I have to spend so much of the actual writing alone not communicating to anyone at all. At least people can chat while they knit or draw or do pottery; I can't do that and write at the same time!

[josephscoat]

personally I think it’s a shame how fandoms “died” too soon these days. I’m not talking in literal sense and I know there are people who stay passionate about their fandoms long after the hype is gone. I’m talking about the “popularity” and how people in general engage with a piece of media they like and how fast they let the hype die down? I don’t know if I’m making any sense, but what I’m trying to say is a fanfic or a fan art of a show that is recently released will get tons of likes, comments, reblogs which is great. but the engagement for fan made content about that same show usually drops drastically — and I mean drastically — once the show is no longer “recent”. and I’m not even talking about when the show is several years old. because you can see the significant drop of engagement a fanfic or fan art about that show receives once the show is like a month old or two. it’s discouraging how most people tend to lose interest and stop engaging with fanfic / fan art once its source material is no longer “new and shiny”.

especially when writing fanfics and creating fan art take time. writers and artists often receive less engagement / appreciation for their works if they take “too long” to create and the source material is no longer “new and shiny” and so people move on to something else that’s new and shiny. it’s heartbreaking to see.

obviously this is in no way to manipulate or guilt trip people into engaging with anything. because yeah you can do whatever you want. this isn’t to force, manipulate or guilt trip anyone into liking or reblogging a fan work or anything. this is just me hoping people will one day take things slower and enjoy things they’re passionate about longer like how we used to in the past.

[josephscoat]

love this bit of dialogue from tintin like you can really tell he’s a writer

[josephscoat]

I wanted to spend yesterday evening making comics but my computer is out of action, so I decided to make a comic the way I used to when I was 11 - on printer paper in felt tip with no forward planning. And what better subject than a thing which happened to me when I was 11?

[josephscoat]

Donald Trump’s Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame is destroyed by man carrying a pickaxe in a guitar case.

[josephscoat]

Some positivity in these turbulent AI times

*This does not minimize the crisis at hand, but is aimed at easing any anxieties.

With every social media selling our data to AI companies now, there is very little way to avoid being scraped. The sad thing is many of us still NEED social media to advertise ourselves and get seen by clients. I can't help but feeling that we as artists are not at risk of losing our livelihoods, here is why:

Just because your data is available does not mean that AI companies will/want to use it. Your work may never end up being scraped at all.

The possibility of someone who uses AI art prompts can replace you (if your work is scraped) is very unlikely. Art Directors and clients HAVE to work with people, the person using AI art cannot back up what a machine made. Their final product for a client will never be substantial since AI prompts cannot be consistent with use and edits requested will be impossible.

AI creators will NEVER be able to make a move unless us artists make a move first. They will always be behind in the industry.

AI creators lack the fundamental skills of art and therefore cannot detect when something looks off in a composition. Many professional artists like me get hired repeatedly for a reason! WE as artists know what we're doing.

The art community is close-knit and can fund itself. Look at furry commissions, Patreon, art conventions, Hollywood. Real art will always be able to make money and find an audience because it's how we communicate as a species.

AI creators lack the passion and ambition to make a career out of AI prompts. Not that they couldn't start drawing at any time, but these tend to be the people who don't enjoy creating art to begin with.

There is no story or personal experience that can be shared about AI prompts so paying customers will lose interest quickly.

Art is needed to help advance society along, history says so. To do that, companies will need to hire artists (music, architecture, photography, design, etc). The best way for us artists to keep fighting for our voice to be heard right now is staying visible. Do not hide or give in! That is what they want. Continue posting online and/or in person and sharing your art with the world. It takes a community and we need you!

[josephscoat]

This is what happens when we don’t teach people which books it was that the Nazis burned.

[josephscoat]

laughing my ass off at how much this sucks