#and I just haven't had the energy or really wanted to watch the recent vods haha

[uzukali]

Guys if there are any starfox or general eclipse type moments/crumbs can you pleaaasseee tell me in my inbox or @ me maybe… ty

[pandor-pandorkful]

The folly of being multifaceted strikes again.

I think maybe I just gotta stop trying to make art streams work for me, at least until I'm an Affiliate and/or can get some better internet...

So if you don't know, twitch has a timed achievement system that tracks your various stats from your streams. The requirements for the Affiliate achievement, which allows you to apply to get paid, are as follows:

Get 50 followers

Stream for 8 hours

Stream on 7 different days

Have an average of 3 viewers

That's it. Sounds so easy right?

Welllll... no....

Gaining followers is a very, very slow process. (I get it, I was incredibly choosy about who I follow on twitch at first, too.) It's maddening, but it's also the one statistic that doesn't "drain" over time, assuming people STAY followed.

8 hours streamed is probably the easiest requirement to hit. But you can lose it if you don't keep streaming, twitch only counts the most recent 30 days of activity.

7 days is the same deal as hours.

3 average viewers is the one that's got me worried about doing art streams, however. My game streams are the only reason I'm coasting by on an average of 3.5... every low turnout art stream I do chips away at that average.

I've had two good art streams so far in the past 30 days: one on a Wednesday afternoon/evening where I was making sticker designs and @shiftythrifting raided me with their audience (💜🧡💜🧡💜), and last Saturday/Day 2 of Frankentober, where I was doing a prompt randomization drawing challenge (of my own weird design) and had basically bribed people to watch with promises of giveaways. ^^;;;

Those streams still had lower passive view counts than my game streams, but they were over 3 at least. The rest of my art streams have been trending worse than that.

Why?

It's harder to vamp when you're actively trying to work on a drawing. That's the main reason speed draws are the norm on youtube-artists dub over the footage after they're done. Drawfee's an outlier, managing to vamp to live drawings by being a multi person team. (So 1 person draws and the other 3 vamp.)

Games are easy because even if you're failing to be entertaining at least the game itself is entertainment.

I'm not completely used to drawing for an audience yet, so generally I tend to come off as overly nervous or low energy. The more art streams I do, the better I get at them... but....

My internet connection is terrible. I can only stream crunchy, 480p video. Which doesn't do my art any favors. (A chatter said on Saturday, upon winning a sticker sheet of my Merfolk: "OH!! You're a GOOD artist!!!" Which made me laugh! ...and despair, a little bit. ^^;;;;;;; I am a trained and practiced artist, but fuck if my crunchy streams aren't doing their damnedest to obscure that.)

So. What to do.

I could switch to making speed draws on youtube, and just game on twitch. But there are several reasons why I really, REALLY wanted art streaming to work out for me:

Having a set work schedule really helps my ADHD, and having an audience helps me focus better

When I manage to get some active chatters it's REALLY fun!!

I was hoping I could use the vods to make shorter vids for youtube... but due to the low settings I'm forced to stream at, it's pointless.

I don't have much disk place on my pc for recording videos, and it's been 7 years or so since I last did any video editing and I'm not looking forward to looking uo tutorials to try reminding myself how to work a video editing suite. >_<

So idk. I wish I felt confident I could afford better internet, cuz that's the big linchpin here.

But random ideas I could try:

Try streaming art at a bunch of different times on a bunch of different days and see if that helps... (tedious, and more likely to hurt my view average even more.)

Give up on 2d art streams for awhile and embrace the mad science angle: stream trying to learn Blender instead.

Also I still haven't tried setting up the webcam to do needle felting yet. If I can find an angle where my boobs stay out of shot, that could be something? (Difficult, there's a reason I want them chopped off. They get in the way for everything. )

Set up a Discord server for my patrons and ko-fi supporters and do work streams of my 2d art there, so that in theory I can still get some of that precious audience-created focus my adhd-addled brain needs so badly

Stop streaming art on twitch and try art-focused streaming site Picarto instead

Ahhhhhh it's all just... maddening. Idk.

[lnterjection]

on hermit shipping there is was an account on tumblr called @hermitcraft-boundaries that had a master doc of shipping boundaries. It is neutral/positive towards shipping and was first created as @actual-hermitcraft-boundaries in response to the original URL being used to argue negatively towards shipping. Either way, the account is gone now it seems, but you can still find it's pinned post here.

Hello! This is a very late reply because I do not check my Tumblr regularly anymore (or like... at all, it seems). Sorry to the other people who submitted stuff to my inbox in 2022... I fear it is too awkward to respond to you guys now but know that your words are appreciated.

So! Since I made my original post about Hermit Shipping boundaries, some new stuff has been said and other stuff been made to my attention (as in, various tweets, clips, private message screenshots, etc from the Hermits about this topic), some of which are in the Google Doc Ichi linked here and some of which I have found elsewhere after a little digging. After sorting through what I have found, the general consensus still seems to be among the Hermits who have spoken on the issue that they want shipping content kept away from them and filterable, but that they don't want people who produce shipping content harassed or asked to take their stuff down and don't really care as long as they don't see it. Please note that harassment is just not okay in general.

Grian and Pearl have both expressed discomfort with the idea of being shipped and Pearl has asked people to not ship her as it makes things awkward between her and her fellow hermits. This is in line with the "do not show the hermits shipping content or talking about wanting to ship hermits around them". We do have to note that there is a distinction between character Pearl and CC! Pearl. I think it's up to the individual to decide how comfortable they are with this, with the hard line that no one should ever show Pearl or any of the Hermits shipping content including her, and do their best to make sure it's filterable. I've also found clips of Gem talking about shipping - older ones saying to not ship her and a newer one saying she's been a less against it recently as long as she doesn't see it, because her main source of discomfort with shipping was chat and people in general talking/asking about her being in a relationship with any man she interacts with, and that recently people have calmed down about it. Please note while I distinctly remember watching this clip, I have not managed to find it again so do not take this as hard fact. I will try to scrounge up the clip eventually (and if anyone knows what I'm talking about please let me know).

Also note that while I watch Hermitcraft episodes, I don't watch streams live (I only watch the occasional VOD), check Tumblr like once a year now, and have stopped being on Twitter completely (not that I was really active there to begin with). When I research for this sort of stuff, I first use Google to help me find sources, and then sometimes ask around on tumblr blogs and discords. Please don't expect me to be "in the know" about what's going on in the fandom right now.

At some point I should probably make a follow-up post going into detail all the other stuff I've found, but as anyone still paying attention to this blog can see, I am no longer active in this fandom (or any fandom). I am still an avid fan of Hermitcraft content and am up to date on everything (as in, I've watched the Season 9 perspective of several hermits from beginning to end and am as excited about Season 10 as the next person), but due to becoming a college student, simply don't have as much time or energy to write as much as I used to. Hopefully it doesn't take another year for me to make a proper post again.

And thanks, Ichi! Sorry it took so long for me to reply (I just saw this in my inbox today, because I haven't check my Tumblr since like... July or August).