#And just nice messages in general !!!!

[bixels]

End-of-Splatoon thoughts.

Thinking about how since the very start, Splatoon has had a feature where players can draw and post artwork and spot them as graffiti on walls or billboards. Or how the weapons have always been paint brushes and rollers and ballpoint pens. Since its inception, Splatoon has been dedicated to engaging its players with the act of creation and creative expression, showing them how their art can build communities and (literally) change the world.

Thinking about finding golden human-made music discs buried underground for thousands of years, and a grand finale music festival. About the Voyager Golden Records. About those human handprints etched into concrete in Alterna. Did those human artists know it would end like this? First a fiery death and then, eventually, a worldwide celebration of music to represent our shared past, present, and future. Did they know that their songs, insignificant in the face of extinction, would one day become the solution that will save the next dominant life-form from the same fate?

Thinking about how eerily similar the Octarian domes are to Alterna. About how close Inklings and Octolings were to repeating the same mistakes as humans. But their doomed fates were undone not by some miracle technology or military power or a rocket, but by music.

Thinking about how humans wiped themselves out with war, and our parting gifts were liquid crystals that somehow paired with the DNA of primeval inklings and somehow infused them with our memories and culture and a Song. And 12,000 years in the future, that same Song will end a war.

Thinking about how art and music and punk culture and rock & roll and friendly competition and petty arguments and water guns aren’t uniquely human concepts, but the fundamental qualities of intelligent life. An inheritable spirit that can cross evolutionary bounds.

Thinking about the theme of Splatoon, that art and music and fun will not die with the human race. That every piece of art we create is a seed we sow for future generations to reap. That our legacy is ingrained into the crust of the earth. That long after we’re gone, the oceans will remember, and they’ll pick up where we left off.

Thinking about how Splatoon says that the essence of humanity –– the thing that will outlive us –– isn't war or prejudice or destruction or greed, it's a song.

[zhukzucraft]

Your latest Quadruple Life update really made me have to stop and and ponder how effortlessly impressive your style. The way you merge the art with actual minecraft screenshots is so unique and it flows so well. I especially love the way you add lighting and depth into it. I'd love to hear your typical process if you're willing to share

hey there! i'm sorry i'm answering this so late, but here's how i draw QL

(dedicated also to everyone who's ever sent me compliments on my style. i see them, and i keep them in my inbox to chew on with my brain)

the first step is getting a background screenshot, then sketching a pose over it at half opacity. Once that is done, i lower the opacity all the way down to 0 and the sketch to about 20% and start filling in the colours on a layer underneath

i usually trace then fill the biggest colour "blobs", then draw the rest of the details over them. Since it's all pixelated, it's quite easy to select a part and then add smaller details within its borders. "Protect Alpha" also helps

once the overall picture is done, i add Chromatic Aberration (from 0 to 4 on either axis depending on how close to the screen the character is) and filters for environmental effects if necessary

then i add the background back in, maybe throw down a shadow, crop it, and it's done!

might not be the most efficient way to go about it, but it works for me!

[sergle]

okay in fairness I can't complain without also mentioning how many people ARE/were very nice to me, and my favorites are these ones that boil down to. like. "i bet ppl are mad bc you have a snatched waist and you're pretty" like I'm twirling my hair rn. say those things again, i like the narrative you're painting

[pushing500]

The solar flare meant Mechi was doing boring stuff like mining, so every time the cooldown for The Monolith or Ms Clarabelle (our sightstealer) was up, he sprinted to do that instead. I don't think he likes manual labour lmao

Some wild people came onto the map, which Mechi was not thrilled about because one of them was a taukai xenotype (cancer people, I think), and he thought they were hella ugly. A bit rude, but Mechi hates everybody anyway, so it's understandable.

The grass is quite literally greener on this side of the fence, boomalope (the boomalope is now named Butter, and he is a very good boomalope)

More silver is always nice, and foggy rain isn't so bad.

We did not offer help to either of The Accurates.

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[galedekarios]

anon who asked me about my favourite gale quotes, i want you to know that this is me rn

[madforhoran]

the screenshot of these mental gymnastics is courtesy of @dmbakura

[lollytea]

Tbh I think the Barbie movie handled its theme of existentialism better than the feminism.

[lornasaurusrex]

I miss you Lorna… this is such a mess

This is an old message and I had several other similar messages, but I miss you guys and hope you’re all doing well!! I’m sorry to see nothing has improved.

I saw I was kindly mentioned by @awesomefringey and some other commenters the other day, so just wanted to log in and say hello and log back out for a few more months. 💕

Sending so so much love to all of you. Take care of yourselves and each other, please.

The video is still on YT.

[storfulsten]

Take ur time, you don't owe us anything!! Draw what you want, spend time here however and whenever you want, just have fun <333

ah thank you for this nice message, I'll try to remember that and such ha <3

[ghosts-of-love]

guy on a dating app was like. I don't wanna hang out with you because I want a friends with benefits thing. after I told him specifically that I don't want to go on a date but would be fine with hanging out casually. my guy, how do you think the friends part of friends with benefits happens if you don't hang out?

[itsalwaysdark]

i like overthink everything now it makes me feel so dumb. i used 2 be able to just talk 2 ppl but nowadays every single thing im like Is that actually going to make them hate me. Yes probably. and then i just dont respond which makes ppl hate me. this is how it is

[afamiliarsword]

Honestly kids who're being exposed to their first couple of art classes against their own will should just be given pinterest and then told to send nice messages to artists they like. I think that would be cool.

[bunfloras]

u dont have to answer if u dont wanna, but like, are u and phil actual friends? like u Know the Real philza? personally? ...

LMAO we’re not friends, it’s very much still a content creator and fan relationship. but yeah, we’re friends on discord and message from time to time! i’ve streamed with him once playing skribbl and i’m a vip in his chat! i’d say we are on pretty good terms

[sherlock-is-ace]

.

[fluxweeed]

hey. hope this message doesn't bother you. I love you. I love your work. you are one of my favorite fic authors, I am absolutely obsessed with everything you write. reread everything ten times over, drarry or not, fluffy or angsty - even when it absolutely shatters my heart (e.g. for lack of wanting, SUCH a great fic btw i'm so obsessed with it). the four doors? life changing. two to lie and one to listen? engraved into my brain for eternity. what's mine is yours? what a ride holy shit, im VERY normal about it. wrapped? my comfort read. and so it goes.

if I could aggressively smother you with kudos and love I WOULD!!!

awhile ago you said that there's no such thing as "big deals" in fandom and I 100% agree but at the same time you are a big deal TO ME!!! not in the sense of any kind of hierarchy but purely based on the fact that I think you are such a cool person and your writing is amazing and poignant and your presence in fandom makes it so much better. it's been a pleasure following you here on tumblr and just reading your tags and posts.

idk I just think you rule. that's it. thank you for hanging with us. MWAH 💛

ahhhh anon sorry for leaving this message sitting in my inbox for a couple of days but !! i have zero idea how to react to this!! you're so kind!! thank you!! please discard any and all inclinations u have that i am a cool person bc i can assure you i am NOT!!

[dvasva]

I have a sincere question.

How will not voting for Biden help? Threatening not to hasn't worked to make him do anything to stop this monstrosity and I'm sure Trump will be (however slightly) worse.

I'm just wondering what you're proposing as a solution here? Are you just saying that it's selfish or something to care about how much worse things will get in the us while there's a genocide going on, or is there some alternative to voting for Biden that will actually help because I want to help whatever I can to stop the genocide.

/genuine

I'm gonna be genuine and honest when I say this; at this point, if you don't already dislike Biden and feel the same way I do, I doubt anything I will say will convince you one way or another, and I can tell your question is coming from this fearmongering rhetoric that was born during the 2020 election of 'Vote Blue no matter who', that I didn't agree with back then and I definitely don't agree with now.

I'm gonna level with you right up top, answer your question first, tell you what I think about all of this, even though it's not the most cheery thing. I don't think there's anything that will make things better. I think we are living in a rotting corpse that is like at most 6 months away from exploding from the built up pressure of gasses. I honestly don't know why you even asked me of all people. I can only really support community outreach, community building and mutual aid to mitigate the inevitable harm this whole clusterfuck, either way, will cause to the most vulnerable people, and can only urge you to do the same. We cannot have any political action until people start building community outside of online spaces. That is the biggest flaw of modern leftist political praxis, the lack of community. This is why the college protests are fantastic, because it is a small scale general strike amongst students, with people organizing and providing mutual aid to make organizing easy for the most amount of people possible. That's my solution. Mutual aid.

And, despite how I feel about questions like this, (especially considering aside from a few replies in various posts, and a generally active reblog and tag life about Palestine and Biden, I haven't made any original posts about this and I'm like... a rando with like less than 200 followers, so it's weird that you're coming to me with this question) I will treat this like a genuine question.

That being said, I did vote for Biden in 2020, despite my reservations. So, anything that happened during his presidency puts blood on my hands as much as anything.

I'll kind of start with saying that I am a hispanic, mexican, nonbinary person with a uterus and disabilities from Texas. My current governor is Greg Abbot and a lot of the most heinous conservative bills and debates regarding immigration, police, free speech, lgbt issues, abortion, etc, have taken place in my state where I live, and I am distantly related to Linda Coffee, one of the Roe v. Wade lawyers.

So, I'm not like. Some cishet white guy from Wisconsin who has never seen or witnessed oppression and who doesn't have any stake in any of this, and thinks the edgiest thing I can do is not participate in the system.

I come at this issue from multiple angles, and these are not like... the official political opinions of everyone who has ever agreed with me, this is just mine.

To start with, 1. I'm still voting in local and state elections, and 2. I don't believe in rewarding bad behavior. You said 'Threatening to not vote for him hasn't done anything to change his behavior' and so I'm going to carry through with my threat. Consequences and all that. Not that it really matters what I vote in presidential elections anyways. I live in Texas, a winner take all state. As we have seen multiple times, the popular vote is meaningless, and the only thing that matters is the electoral college. Texas is gerrymandered to all hell, and it's districts are drawn in a way that will always favor republicans. Until our corrupt ass state can finally manage, by some fluke, to vote in a non-republican who is actually willing to redistrict the state and prevent gerrymandering (which they wont do cause they're all chickenshit), all of Texan electoral college votes will go to the Republican candidate. I know we're not supposed to say our vote doesn't matter cause 'every little bit helps' but my vote literally does not matter in a real, tangible, way.

I know a lot of people are scared of having their rights stripped away, sure, but none of you have listened to POC, especially to POC living in southern states. All of this stuff that Trump is threatening? The more police, the border stuff, anti-trans bills, abortion? It's already happening in this country. I don't have abortion rights, I don't have freedom of speech on college campuses, I don't have a right to form a new union, I don't have trans rights, and if the police wanted to, they could pull over anyone in my family and arrest and deport them simply because of the color of their skin, regardless if they're actually an immigrant or not. Cop Cities are popping up around the world, the police is militarized and think it's ok to violently arrest peaceful protesters on college campuses. Meanwhile, the rich keep getting richer. Rafah was invaded last night, tanks placed on the border preventing anyone from leaving into Egypt anymore, and all the while the richest fuckers in this entire country, many of whom have voiced open and intense support for Israel, all met up with their tickets that cost 75k to take pictures in their pretty outfits and ignore the ongoing genocide.

All of this stuff is already happening regardless of who's in charge, and the only difference between Trump and Biden, to be honest? Northern Liberals will actually care about what's happening if Trump is in office. If Trump did everything that Biden did, there would be mass outrage about Palestine from every single Vote Blue No Matter Who person who's around. It's easy to blame the people whose rights have already disappeared for the threat that your rights might disappear as well. This Vote Blue No Matter Who thing is a cry for comfort. It is the people who are not feeling the effects of the crumbling empire we live in crying out, screaming 'Let me feel the comfort for a little bit longer, I don't want to be subjected to the things that others are already subjected to! I just want to be comfortable for a little bit longer!' And I honestly am not interested in voting for white northern comfort just because the other guy is threatening to take that away too.

And you are right. I do think it's selfish to try to focus on your own comfort while ignoring the active genocide of Palestinians, the ethnic cleansing being done with American Money, the thing that puts blood on every taxpayers hands, a true example of Taxation without Representation. Palestine is not the sacrificial lamb that we are entitled to trample over to ensure that we are comfortable. To think so is so monstrously dehumanizing, to say 'I can't focus on that cause I have to worry about me' while actively funding it. That's the biggest catching point for me. We have a responsibility to oppose Biden, to not vote for him and to actively call for him to step down and allow a different person to run, if not dismantling the system entirely, because this blood is on our hands.

Other people have said a lot more clever things about this than me, but Palestinian oppression is directly linked to all oppression around the world. Police in the US train with IOF soldiers, use the same methods on american citizens as IOF use on Palestinian citizens. This is not a case of 'two random countries that have nothing to do with us duke it out'. Israel is acting with the direct and explicit blessing of Joe Biden and the United States Government. He is, even for the standards of Democrats who like to say pretty words while bombing brown people, a warmonger. Like, violently so. Biden is legitimately more dangerous than anyone is giving him credit for, and is actively and openly funding blatant and obvious war crimes. That should honestly get him arrested and tried in an international criminal court.

Anyhow, that's all that from an American perspective. If you wanna really figure out what to do to help, seek out voices who actually know what they're talking about instead.

I recommend Imani Barbarin:

Also, check out my pinned post for ways you can provide a bit of support or learn more about the active ongoing genocide and ethnic cleansing of Palestine.

Especially check out Esims for Gaza. Aid has been inconsistent at best, but if you can't find anything else to do, send esims to help keep Palestine connected to the world.