#but maybe doing it will

[inolienkiki]

The Keepers website was taken down sometime in the last few days. I don't know exactly when, because I don't remember the last time I checked it, and our fandom is so small that it could easily have taken months to notice if I hadn't needed to reference something for the wiki.

It's not really a logistical problem; thankfully, the Wayback Machine has a recent scan of the website that covers everything- all the text, all the files. I've downloaded all the assets to my computer to make sure I have it personally backed up. (Let me know if you'd like any in particular.)

Nonetheless, the whole situation has left me feeling really... empty, I guess. For years, the Keepers website was basically the only thing left to anchor this story in the present. Almost everything about the series- initial announcement, anything from the original book tour, early author interviews, the HarperCollins webpage- was already gone soon after the series wrapped up. But now, all those links are gone, and the series is out of print, and the fandom is a few people on Tumblr who occasionally think about it, and vam, and me.

In just five days, the first Keepers book will reach its nine-year anniversary. But I don't feel like celebrating, because I feel like my favorite books are part of history now. Books are supposed to be timeless, but so few people are ever going to pick up these books again. Even so, I'm always excited by forgotten books- but Keepers doesn't feel exciting in the same way, because it's in the process of being forgotten, and because I know it could have survived if it had just reached its target audience.

The books are gone- out of print. The author is gone- he's said he wants to write another children's series, but he hasn't posted anything in several years, and his one last link to Keepers just went down. The people who read these books when they came out, the children in the school tours and the positive Facebook commenters and the one student who made the 3D-printed Fel'Daera, they're gone too, because Keepers likely isn't part of their story anymore. So, I guess I'm glad that it's part of mine.

I know this is a very specific feeling, and I know all 4 of my followers are already aware of the Keepers series, and I don't need to be telling you about it. But I guess what I do want to tell you is: Let's talk about Keepers. Let's draw and write and think about Keepers. Let's keep our memories of this series alive, and let's share it with our friends and through that let's send our problem into every other universe. God knows, we all deserve these books.

I'll see y'all later this week with a map of the Great Burrow.

[word-count-bullet-count]

I've been seeing a lot of knight posts recently. pretty great

[cornpapers]

[swan2swan]

Whoever conceived and animated this moment, I hope they're doing well and thriving. This is S-rank romance stuff here.

[flame-shadow]

hey did you know??? that if you stop stretching and maintaining mobility in your body then it goes away?? things get tight and you can't move the way that you used to??? and when you decide to try getting a stretch routine going that the first week fucking sucks because you keep going 'damn i used to be able to do this no problem' and then you have to switch gears and be kind to yourself and just focus on getting better from here instead of berating yourself for dropping the good habits in the first place??? and your body never stops aging so you gotta keep taking care of it and sometimes you gotta take care of it extra in certain areas because of things that happened when you were younger and it's boring and sometimes hurts but it's so necessary???

i am yelling this at myself right now i am going through An Experience (trying to get into a routine of body maintenance again for my physical and mental health)

[lylahammar]

My take on unicorns! I'd really love to make a mythical creature field guide someday, since the Spiderwick Field Guide is what inspired me to start drawing in the first place 🥰

[obsob]

i am a being capable of immeasurable love and whimsy

[asteroidtroglodyte]

5 years ago, I was in Rehab.

10 years ago, I was watching my Potential and Opportunities dissolve and evaporate in an ocean of cheap gin and expensive whiskey.

But 5 years ago, I was in Rehab.

One of the exercises they had us perform was to imagine ourselves happy, 5 years in the future.

Many of us in that room had forgotten how to imagine nice things happening to them. A few snorted (well, I snorted), finding the notion that we’d even still be around in 5 years grimly humorous.

For about half of us, it was the last stop on the way down.

But I indulged the therapist. I was there, after all, because I did not want to die. So, I imagined myself, 5 years hence.

Happy.

It came to me all at once; an artistic remix on Norman Rockwell’s Freedom From Want, reframed with myself placing food at the table.

Sunday Dinner At My Place, I answered, when it came my turn to share my fantasy. I was asked what food I imagined eating.

It’s not the meal itself, I said, it’s the implications framed around it. Sunday Dinner At My Place means that I have a Place. It means that I have Family that will actually speak to me and friends who actually want to see me. It means money enough not just to feed myself but others too. It means having the time to spare to take the time preparing the meal.

A lot of nodding heads all around me. A struck chord. Many people with no Place, in that place. Nowhere that would lament their leaving.

5 years hence, as I lay down to sleep in my Home, with my Wife and my Son, surrounded by my Art and my Flowers, I reflect.

It was a long road. It was hard. We lost people. So many people. There were long days and long nights and hospital stays. Angry arguments with ghosts. I changed, in ways I never hoped for, or expected. Good ways, finally, for once. Slowly, against the backdrop of a world in chaos, I found my mind.

Sometimes, My Wife wondered aloud, what she did to deserve me. After some stumbling with my feelings, I eventually settled on an answer.

I’m a Rescue.

She gave me a Home.

And, so, I gave her a Family.

It seemed fair

This Sunday, my folks, which whom I have not had a shouting match in years, will come over for dinner. We will cook and eat together. My Friend became My Wife, and she took a piece of me and with it she made Our Son. There will be many hugs, and no violence. Good Things Happened.

I don’t know who needs to hear this, but you don’t know what the future holds.

don’t give up yet, ok?

It could get good, even.

[eastgaysian]

[bacchuschucklefuck]

couldnt draw my thang for mid-autumn so treated myself to a calne redesign instead

[hinamie]

10 years later

[mzcain27]

I think game studios should just release their character creators online. For the times when I don’t wanna play the whole game, just the lil dress up part

[ardri-na-bpiteog]

Also increasingly aware that a LOT of people "manage" getting through the 40+ hour work week by sleeping less than is healthy and relying on stimulants like coffee and energy drinks to keep them going.

For people who are unwilling or unable to do this...work really does just dominate your life. Like we really should not have to rely on unhealthy practices just to have a social life or keep on top of housework or whatever.

I know I post about this a lot but I'm so TIRED all the time and it's just so depressing that this is how we're expected to spend the one life we have.

[gay-little-izzet]

Made this a while back and never posted it, but I figured I should now that I actually started T!!!

(Not a self portrait, this is just some guy)

[platoapproved]

What was that you said about memory? "A monster," was it?

[adventures-in-poor-planning]

Today I saw a pic of a baby cowbird next 2 its nest "parent" and it was so much bigger!!!!! Which is the sort of thing that gets normal people upset about the injustice of nest parasitism but makes *me* worry if baby cowbirds get bird dysmorphia