#i guess i can just see art blog as a way to archive my art instead of trying to grow

[what-eats-owls]

This info was of some surprise to folks on Bluesky, so I'm going to repeat it here in light of the sheer number of "the Internet Archive was an uncomplicated good apart from this one weird move" posts I've seen...

Are we all aware that IA has been gradually pushing the dogma that generative AI is a net public good, and has been feeding books, music, and video into AI?

This article is about how IA is actively using AI in their archives. It's an interview with Brewster Kahle, founder and Board Chair of IA. Choice quote:

This is the blog post about the comments they submitted to the US copyright office arguing against any new copyright regulations for AI. Some more choice quotes:

You can guess how I feel about framing the writers and artists whose work BUILT generative AI as "workers" who just need to be "retrained."

Last year they hosted a zoom panel called "Generative AI Meets Open Culture: Opportunities, Challenges & Ethical Considerations." Multiple visuals were AI-generated art, the panelists were asked to avoid discussing copyright. It's an hourlong panel and I couldn't find a transcript, so I skipped around to see if anyone addressed the elephant in the room. I found at ~32 minutes, a vague gesture at acknowledging it wasn't great if you tried to replicate an artist's style, but fine if you just wanted generic art.

(If anyone finds a more concrete statement in there, and/or a transcript, I'd love to know! The tenor I got was overall "look at how cool these tools are and let's talk about how they're a public good.")

At the end of January 2024, they hosted "Public Domain Day," including a panel on incorporating Generative AI in art. They invited two artists who utilize Generative AI, and a publisher whose books go immediately into the public domain. More quotes from their own writeup:

This was an event in celebration of public domain, but as far as I can tell, they've more or less avoided even acknowledging that creators are actively being harmed by Gen AI. Again, if anyone can find a clearer statement, please share it.

Another wrinkle in this is that Kahle, on behalf of the Internet Archive, sued the US Government in 2004, challenging the law that automatically granted and renewed copyright to a creator. Previously, copyright was opt-in only, had to be regularly renewed by the holder, and cost money to do so. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court in 2007, but was dismissed. (Scroll down to Docket 07-189, Kahle v Mukasey, for court filings.)

To be clear, this is the law that means you automatically own your own work. It's not a shock that Kahle's suit failed. But if Kahle had won, artists who didn't pay to secure and maintain copyright over their work would be SOL right now in the lawsuits against generative AI image and text scrapers.

So yeah. My tiny violin for IA continues to shrink.

[commanderyes]

The Commander Says Goodbye

I’m not going to lie, I’m extremely anxious as i’m writing this, out of what these news could mean to a lot of people, and my heart feels heavy enough it could drop down my ribcage any minute from now and squish all my other organs. But I’ve been dancing around this topic for a long time now, and I think i’ve finally reached a point where i can’t ignore it anymore, for my own sake.

I hereby announce Commander Yes has come to an end.

As I’ve mentioned plenty of times before, here and to many other people, when I began this comic all the way back in 2018 I was in a really bad, really low place in my life in every sense of the word, and it was a spur-of-the moment decision to cheer myself up, because Path of Fire had just released and my enjoyment of the game had reached fever pitch and I had been playing Guild Wars 2 alone since as far as launch, and none of my other friends had ever really gotten into it. I guess I just, dunno, cried out into the big maelstrom of the community, one voice amidst millions, because i wanted SOMEBODY to look at what i did and revel in the nerdery with me.

And somehow the snowball began to roll and people wanted more and more of what I could do, and I was being actively reached out to, and, well, some time after that I landed my first ever job, I discovered a lot of things about myself, and I found myself in communities that welcomed me with open arms, and many of the people in there have since become among the best friends I could’ve possibly encountered, kindred souls who i’ve shared joys and sorrows for many years and who I can’t imagine living without anymore.

And all the while I kept making the comics, and with every entry posted every week I’d keep having people stopping to comment on them, and whether they were dumb jokes or personal takes on the story, they’d all share how much what I do kept hitting them in the kokoro, and to this day whenever I play anywhere in the game I still get people who recognize me and thank me for doing what I do. It was wonderful, it IS wonderful, and seeing that response motivated me to keep going, because what did still mattered to people, out there.

But I did always say I planned to keep doing these comics until I ran out of energy for them, and I think i’ve finally reached that point.

Because ever since I actually landed that job I’m exhausted and sleep-deprived every other day, so much so that I only have time to work on the comic on saturdays and sundays, and it gets harder and harder to just sit and draw, and at that point it was just more work, and while I still enjoy and play Guild Wars 2 a lot, it no longer consumes my time and attention like I’ve used to and i’ve been having fun with more personal projects, and honestly the direction the story is taking these days does not sit right with me and it’s hard to find inspiration in that, and this might be borderline selfish but every year I find people care less and less about the comics and it really takes a hit to you motivation when hardly anybody responds after you’ve spent a whole weekend trying to squeeze a five-page comic out.

And, well, I have been doing these for six years straight, and I think that’s a good run. I’m tired, and ready to move on, at long last. Let it be someone else’s turn.

But that’s the beautiful thing about this community, isn’t it? Even if I’m hanging up the hat, there are a whole lot of fantastic artists out there, as we speak, still cranking out works of art, deserving of all the attention they can get. And think of all the artists yet to come! For every story that ends, another story is just about to begin!

The world keeps on spinning, one way or another.

I’ll be closing my patreon shortly after this, but the reddit archives and tumblr blog shall remain for people to browse whenever they feel like (or until they both go in flames, i guess, what social media isn’t about to these days)

I still don’t think I ever was that much of a big deal, but all the same, to everyone who’s ever supported me and helped me be the person I am right now, to everyone who’s been there from the beginning, to all the devs of this game that has captured us for nearly a decade now, to all my fellow players and artists out there

Thank you.

See you out there, fellow commanders. Still the stars find their way.

[jils-things]

I would never fall in love again until I found her

I said, "I would never fall unless it's you I fall into"

I was lost within the darkness, but then I found her

I found you

[3.25.23]

ouueeehh we're back to my corny love letters like last time 💜 again absolutely NO pressure reading these, because it WILL get lengthy 💜 this also serves as a personal love letter that i can archive!

ahh, steven st.one. a wild card in my f/o list. i never thought i'd find myself to like him... i've always tried my best to avoid the pretty boy design after i've gotten older which is why i was oddly in denial during my early steven days hehe... the earliest memory i have of him is just me battling him in my ruby emulator back in the 4th grade - but i don't think i actually remembered him too well, i only thought he looked like a silly anime version of the classical composer be.ethoven and tbh, i still like to think he does look like him in the rse style lolll 💜

for the whole, actual story - it was just last year - i was reading the r/s arc, of course. it was one of those days in school where i had nothing much to do and snuck my phone to read manga to pass some time. at some point, my classmate joined to read with me - it was at this moment where steven debuts properly and it caught my classmate by Surprise. she thought he looked very handsome! to which i teased her... strangely enough, this exchange impacted me? maybe it's because someone acknowledged what i was doing and even bothered to briefly read along with me - so in a way steven kinda bookmarked that memory.

so after that exchange, i just kept on reading. everytime he had something to say, i couldn't help but just stare at his face? he looked nice, i guess? he's also very gentle and polite... i kept this thought of mine for quite sometime until i was discussing the manga arc with my p.okespe mutual and he mentioned him. i somewhat confessed he looked nice and that was the biggest mistake i've ever done because what my friend did after was absolutely blow me with art after art of the pretty rock collector and i was STRUGGLING. it ultimately came down to this one cute panel in the o.ras chapter where he was blushing and I wasn't the same person since then 🚶🚶🚶and funnily enough, i told myself I wasn't going to fall for anyone because of the manga and whoopedoo p.okespe!steven my beloved the greatest man ever. i mean i love the game counterpart as well, they're nearly identical - it's just the manga that totally swept me... sighhhh

steven is such a nice character to begin with, he's honestly a very humble and nice champion. he's not showy about his identity and would rather be alone by himself to indulge in what he wants. he is willing to give up a very respectable position in the po.kemon league just to pursue his interests and with that i see a man not after power and fame but a man who just wants to find joy in what he does even if it demotes him. on top of that, he's just a sweet gentleman. he was raised well of course, and you can see it clearly in his acts in the story. i love him very much for that and who wouldn't want those traits?

i was really absolutely embarrassed to be all over this guy at first - it took a whole month for me to actually share to my blog about how i liked steven and took awhile to adjust to that fact that i opened up about it 😭 but the community was very kind and supportive about the pairing and if i'm being honest, i think stevaide made a super lasting impact on my blog recently and it's really so comforting to picture them as a young loving married couple with ruby. it made me feel unashamed with what i can do with my silly ships. i'm still very glad for the endless support for steven and jaide.

soo, yes. happy memoryshipping 💜💚 thank you for making my times of struggle more bearable if not perfect and thank you to everyone who enjoys this ship even if it was just a little bit :]

credits to @/cafekitsune <3

[miyamiwu]

Reblogging is a form of self-expression

I’ve seen a lot of posts about how people aren’t reblogging much art anymore, with the authors encouraging people to reblog coz it helps support artists. But the thing about most of these posts is that they don’t really talk about how the likes-reblog gap isn’t just widening for art posts. It applies to other types of posts as well—be it short or long text posts, some edit you made, photos, etc.

I don’t have that much followers, but some of my posts have reached over 1k notes. (And some rare popular ones have reached 5-6 digits). I write a lot of metas both here and on one of my side blogs. I also make gifs occasionally, and I have lots of original posts in general too.

But in all of my posts, there are always more likes than reblogs, and the gap is often wide.

When I look through some of the blogs in the notes, several of them are empty but with their Likes visible. And if they’re not empty, then all their posts are just their own. No reblogs at all...

Many of those Likes vs Reblogs posts talk about how reblogging helps the original poster but make little to no explanation on how reblogging serves the reblogger. And I guess that’s why the likes-reblogs gap continues to widen. People are framing reblogs as free advertising for the OP when we should be framing reblogs for what it primarily is—a form of self-expression.

When you reblog something, it’s like saying...

You’re so excited about the post that you want others to see it

You agree with the idea/opinion being expressed in the post (opinions, discourse, analysis, etc.)

You care about the things said in the post (like sharing pro-Palestine posts)

You identify with the community being represented in the post (like being part of a certain fandom)

You find the post funny and want to save it (like how you’d save memes to your phone)

You think the post is cute and want to squish it (cat photos, animal videos, kawaii stuff, etc.)

Or you just think the post is going to be a popular one so you’re “investing” early

etc.

You can even expand these ways of expression by adding your own commentary through tags or reblogs. You can’t do that with just liking.

Actually, you don’t even need to have a clear reason for reblogging something. Posts can simply be like stickers or stamps, which you collect to put on your scrapbook (your blog). Years later, you can then go through your archive and look back on how you were before at certain times in your life.

[To those who don’t know: Yes, we have an archive. It’s at username.tumblr.com/archive. You can filter posts by post type and by month/year of posting. Only posts/reblogs show up in the archive. Likes are not included.]

Moreover, reblogging is how you gain friends. Mutuals, after all, are two people who follow each other, and well, for someone to follow you, you must have something on your blog that they’d want to see more of. If you only like posts, then what’s there to see?

Original posts are nice, of course, but when I see a blog where all posts are just their own, I’m immediately given the impression that it’s being run by a brand. And it may be that the blog really is trying to maintain its Brand image—such is the case for side blogs dedicated to a certain topic (like poll tournaments or art-only blogs). But even then, people will expect you to have a Main blog or another side blog where you do reblog stuff.

It’s kind of how we know you’re human. And it’s also how we know that you’re open to actually engaging with others on this site.

A blog that’s empty or contains nothing but their own posts sends out the message that you’re not interested in or just don’t care about what other people are saying.

[egg-bro]

hey!! i love you!!! here are some links to explore in case you are bored or need a distraction <3

hatch some dragons in this adoptables game and share them on your blog

a website art piece to explore (warning for potential bright/flashing imagery)

draw your own adventures

an archive of educational vhs tapes

roingus

my personally curated collection of animal posts if you just want to scroll through animal pics

or my collection of bug posts if you prefer them

play a first-person shooter game from the pov of an egg

guess the word based on its meaning

a game where you play as someone's anxiety

create a song using this website

or create a song as this cat

combine elements to make new things

play scattergories online

create a spotify playlist based on your pet

here is the mcr sweet revenge flash game

work at your cozy bubble tea stand in this google doodle

take a dive in the ocean and see what you find on your way down

a funky rhythm-based game

learn calculus

a youtube playlist of animal videos

or watch an animal livecam

play the impossible quiz

take photos of axolotls in lake xochimilco in this cute google doodle

experience all sorts of illusions

here is a website you can cut up (to help with self harm urges)

create yourself in this avatar creator

take a real-time virtual trip to mars

the spite cookbook, if you haven't decided on dinner yet

some resources for building your own website

and finally, posts on my blog tagged for you to scroll through more posts like these if you need more things to do

[innocuoussketches]

I wanted to talk a little bit about linkrot.

I’m involved with a fanart archival project, homestucksongcomics. Calling it an archival project might be a little pretentious; we just reblog lyricstucks, tagging and indexing them as best we can to make it easy for people to find them.  These days, we’re losing more and more posts.  A lot of lyricstucks are long and artists courteously put them under read-mores, which became defunct when people deleted their blogs or changed fandoms and deleted the post.  We’ve added youtube video adaptations of some of these lyricstucks below the read-mores, only for the videos to later get deleted or privated. 

Earlier this year, I thought of a lyricstuck that I loved and went to rewatch it, only to discover that it had suffered this fate.  I remember the illustrations from it, the ideas, the way it matched characters to the song’s concepts.  I’d spoken to the artist once and told them how much I loved it; they were surprised I’d even seen it as it hadn’t gotten a lot of notes.  No one can see it now.  I searched youtube for any existing adaptations and came up empty-handed.  I even tried the internet archive. All that’s left of it now is the very first panel before the read more.  I cried about it.

With all of these fan artists, we are internet strangers, but there was a time when we loved the same thing.  We poured our time and energy and creativity and fragile pieces of our hearts into our art and cosplays and fanworks.  I started doing digital art at all because I was inspired by other people’s lyricstucks and wanted to make my own. These days, I’m not particularly involved in fandom and am lucky if I post fan art once a year, but I’m carrying the memories of our community, our passion and absurdity, the skills and songs I learned because of them, with me, and I think of it with great fondness.

Yesterday, someone reblogged a lyricstuck from homestucksongcomics and I got a notification about it.  This particular lyricstuck was from a deactivated blog, but wasn’t under a read more so we had the whole thing preserved.  They tagged it: #my art #archive #god i missed this. It was the original artist, reblogging their old art onto their new blog.  I don’t know when it was originally posted, but we had reblogged it in 2014.  It had been almost ten years.

I guess this all is to say, I missed this too.  We’ve all grown and changed in that time, and a lot of us have packed up and moved on and it will never be what it once was, but let’s not erase what we shared.  My first lyricstuck did not get many notes and its art is borderline embarrassing; you will recall it was essentially my first digital art project. I can’t imagine anyone would miss it if it went anywhere, but it will be staying up.

[sincerely-sofie]

Ahoy again Sofie… your work is amazing and your ability to interact with your captive audience is near magical at moments but I do have two questions for you if you maybe so kind as to answer my queries, from someone who has charted the ways of a creator for many to see and be amazed by.

The first is how does one start creating a series upon the sea known as the internet. No matter if the ship you’re creating is one of an already formed series(like PKMD for example) or a completely original hand crafted story.

And the second is, how does one go about finding an audience if you haven’t a soul how knows of you yet?

Thank you so much for your kind words! You're very sweet!

Oh man. Do I ever have no answers. I’ll try my best, but I’m really not qualified for this ;w;

For your first question: The first thing you've gotta do is let go of your ego and have fun. Forget your pride and revel in your favorite tropes and storytelling strategies. Cringe culture is dead— you don't have to resurrect it to bully yourself about having a highbrow, marketable story. I always thought that the advice to “Have fun and your audience will too” was a bit inaccurate, but then I decided to go ham with all the self-indulgent elements I included in TPiaG and I'm at over 400 followers in under 6 months (which is absolutely unprecedented I must say). That's the most important guiding principle, I think. Because then you'll have fun no matter what comes of your project!

As for question two: I have no idea. Apparently fanworks are the way to go? I will say that technically I had 1k-ish subscribers on YouTube and 100-ish followers on a previous Instagram account (~80% of which were friends and family in the Instagram account’s case), so I wasn't starting from absolutely nothing, but I didn't mention my Tumblr anywhere after I made it because it was supposed to be private. I made my main blog as a personal art archive, learned I couldn't keep it utterly hidden, and figured I'd just have a couple bots like a post here and there after I tagged my posts to make it easier for me to search them. That was very much NOT what happened, as you can guess. According to my sister who works as a professional illustrator, fanart is a great way to get more eyes on your art so that more people can be exposed to personal work (if that's your goal!)

But yeah. I seriously don’t know how so many lovely people decided to click on my blog and like what they saw. It’s a bit shocking bc I’ve never had such an involved community before and it’s so overwhelmingly encouraging :,>

[zappernaut]

Hey, I'm Zapperfish, but you can call me any variation of that word. I make character designs and draw them.

My current interests that will probably not change anytime soon:

●The Nobody's Isles Cinematic Universe (aka my main OC and world building projects)

●Experimenting with a ton of different artstyles because I like variety

●Fish and incorporating fish into everything I do because yes

●Cookie Run (aka the chaos that goes on over at @biscuitsofthesevenseas and @dailymocharay )

●Trying to max out my imagination stats

●Pixel Art!

Other Blogs:

● So there's @biscuitsofthesevenseas , who I mentioned above and is my Cookie Run blog

• @mocharaywhenmotivated my OTHER cookie run blog but this time dedicated to Mocha Ray only imo

●And then there's @veryzappyshenanigans which is my reblog archive because I don't really want clutter on my main

●And @drzappysmarinebiology which is an account i made specifically to reblog the posts from the marine biology blogs I follow

OTHER:

●I only have Reddit, Tumblr, Pinterest, and an abandoned Twitter account. If you see me on any other social platform it means they are an impersonator.

● I'm a bit of a small artist currently, and I'm trying to change that because I like it when people see my designs.

●I may post unfunny memes to do with my characters that only I may understand. So beware, I guess.

• My artstyle changes every time I draw so beware. Although I have a main way of drawing characters but sticking to just one lineart style bores me, so I just draw depending on what I feel like that day.

• Currently working on the periodic table ocs. My motivation for that series may come and go, but I have not abandoned it, even if I don't draw any of them for weeks. I'm either stuck on their design or just not bothered.

Anyways, that's it I guess.

Zapperfish Out.

[annadiplosis]

I’VE HAD THIS BLOG FOR 10 YEARS

Here’s to many more years of fish, vampires, aliens and bird people! To everyone who follows me and/or has praised my art, in any way, at any point, thank you, from the bottom of my heart.

I’ll be ranting about art progress and style changes under the cut, but before that, just a reminder that I’m going through a complicated time in my life and if you want to support me and my art there’s a few ways to do so.

Now back to my goofy doodles.

Maybe because I've drawn ever since I can remember, I've never felt a ton of pressure to improve my art skills. It's always been something I knew was going to happen as long as I kept drawing, and that's what I've been doing. I try not to stress too much about staying consistent with my practice or achieving any self-imposed goals. I like to discover what I'm able to do, one drawing at a time.

I also believe progress is not linear, and not every single piece is better than the last. While my 2023 art shows a higher skill level than that of 2013, I think some of my older work looks perfect the way it is. I'm drawn to expressiveness, movement, and compelling characters, and that can be achieved at any level. I've gotten better at some technical aspects, of course; my linework is far more decisive than it was before, and my endless battle with color palettes gets easier every day. I'm also capable of unwillingly drawing the crappiest, most horrendous doodle you've ever seen, just as I was in 2013. Just as we all are. I'm not sure why I find that reassuring, but I do.

When I started this blog, what really worried me was developing a distinct style. I studied other artists and stole specific elements of their work, sometimes drawing and redrawing the exact same thing until I was satisfied with the result. At some point, and I can't exactly tell you when or why, I stopped caring about that. It's not that I thought I'd found My Perfect Style, because that doesn't exist. I guess I started focusing on other stuff, and that's when my actual style started coming together. I followed my instincts, tried to strike a balance between what came naturally to me and what I was envisioning every particular piece to look like, and it worked. Any alteration my style has gone through since then has been unplanned and intuitive, and I can't see myself approaching art in any other way. I'm excited to discover what kind of artist I'll be in ten more years.

Thanks for reading this far! Warm regards from me and every notebook I've used since opening this blog (#9 to #37 in my overall archive) ♡

[acheronist]

how did you start learning tattooing? what made you want to try it?

ohh... hm. Well. Okay to be so honest and short and easy with you I was really depressed and having my quarter life crisis and so I picked it up as a way to try and get myself back on track with like. being alive + doing something semi-meaningful with my life lol

here's the longer detail stuff that I fear is a bit too tenderhearted to just have out in the open

💌

near the end of last year (november-ish) I was yapping with a friend of mine from art school who ended up getting into tattooing after we had graduated, and explaining that i didn't like how publishing illustration was treating me and i felt like i was spinning my wheels and going nowhere. so she really encouraged me to give tattooing a shot? because I needed to do something different and she thought my art style could be really well suited for tattooing... and ofc i've been tangentially aware of tattoo culture but i was always kind of too scared that I wasn't like........ GOOD OR COOL ENOUGH? FOR IT? it seemed very intense and like there wasn't going to be room for me yknow. but anyways after talking with my friend i started doing a lot of research about like.. the history of tattoo culture and how techniques developed over the centuries and what are the popular styles now and what modern health/safety expectations of tat artists are now etc. just kind of taking it all in. following a lot of artists on social media etc and talking to my friend about what her apprenticeship entailed... but I bought myself a shitty cheap tattoo kit online in december and spent most of december-february just trying to teach myself how to handle a rotary pen machine and get a feel for it? and basically spent all of my time either playing around with my machine and fake practice skins or drawing or researching about tattoo history. and then in february/march I redid my whole portfolio with some neo trad designs + my other illust work and started visiting some local shops and basically just begging for 15 minutes to talk to someone in the industry and figure out if I was hopeless or not lmaooo. I went to about five shops and got soundly rejected / turned down from all of them, so I was really taking it as a sign that I should give up? but then the last shop I was going to try was like. idk it felt different and way more optimistic than everywhere else I'd tried at.... the artists on break at the time all took a chance to look thru my portfolio and talk to me, the shop owner is an angel, and so we went from "can I just ask for your professional opinion on if I suck at this or not" to getting introduced to everyone as they were working like "this is isabel she's gonna be our new apprentice!😊" which was!!!!!! CRAZY.

and so it took about two weeks after that before one of the more experienced artists in the shop was like 🙄 Fine I will teach another fucking apprentice I guess. Whatever. and I was like oh no he hates me. (turns out there's some shop lore about how awful the last apprentice was and everyone was kind of waiting to see if I'd turn out the same way) so I've just been working really hard ever since to prove I'm serious and now I'm everyone's favorite little idiot in my shop eheheh

but yeah! so I've been apprenticing officially in my shop since the end of march!!! just learning and trying to be helpful for my artists and trying to take it on the chin that I'm brand new and still learning and have a long way to go yet without getting miserable about it... but I feel very optimistic and way better now than I did in december, and everyone in my shop is soooo so kind and encouraging of my progress it really does feel like... Oh there is hope for me after all!

but yeah anyways. I just wanted to have an archive of my work as I progress and improve? so now everyone who follows my stupid ass blog has to bear witness to me being slightly bad at tattooing for months yet xoxoxo

[masked-and-doomed]

NEW ME NEW INTRO!!

Hello, I'm Kat/Kats (or Yomotsu), welcome!! I am so normal about my boyfriends.

Please feel free to ask me about my OC, UG!! Hell, even cooler if you do it in a roleplay kinda way.

Other places you can find me:

@katsdoodles - art blog/archive.

Discord: thatonekats

👆 just in case. Tumblr explodes. Talk to me if you wanna ig (I am not good at conversing. So. Keep that in mind.)

Ao3: ThatOneKat2

👆 Might as well have it here. I've been more in a writing mood this year.

Twitter: @ThatOneKats

I have a twitter now I fucking guess. A bit of bonus content there (a little bit more of unhinged thoughts) but you're not missing much if you don't go there.

UG RP twt: @LIBRARIAMYLAMB

If you wanna see little bits of UG musing about go there.

--

Suspected BPD, have been diagnosed autistic. I will feel things very intensely either forever or feel nothing about it in the next hour max. You may see vent posts. Every now and then. Check the tagging system to block em out.

I am deeply in love and sickly affectionate for my 4 darlings. They're my boyfriends, girlfriends, besties- our relationship? Is uhh whatever man. It's love. It's love.

First two being Yomotsu Hirasaka (pfp), and Takao Hiyama. They are my most intense hyperfixation of 2 years.! They are from Mirai Nikki/Future Diary. An anime/manga which I don't really like.

The next beloved is Pocketcat! He is from Fear and Hunger. He's. A silly :) There's so much intrigue of him aaaghhh ough he is so sad.

Last one !! Faust. From Guilty Gear. He's a. He's somebody. Got him on Valentine's Day. He makes me a different kind of ill. Alas, this doctor cannot cure me.

They're 💙 just like me fr. I love them. URL is them btw. Masked men, doomed.

(comfortable with sharing and gushing together with everyone. I don't mind if you send or @ me in stuff that has Faust shipped with someone, (I like appreciating art of Faust in any form :] ) just know I'm uncomfy with all (canon x canon) Faust ships except Happy Chaos, meaning that I won't talk about them (eg., fau.slayer) together.)

I am. Also obsessed with my lambs as well. (The Conclave, consisting of Axus, Libraria, Baldias, and Chronus) They mean a lot to me. I wish to give them happiness they didn't have the time nor place for. You will see me reblog lambs and tag it as them. Feel free to send me lamb pictures, effectively beaming Conclave to me.

NOTE! I do sometimes post about needing my darlings to kill themselves, or wish great harm upon them. I will not always have positive things to say about them. I am a hater as much as I am a lover. (Not the "I want him dead" (lovingly) (though I do have sadism and would enjoy killing them for the fun of it), I have genuine hatred towards them all (Libraria the least) and I loathe their existence.

(if I had to guess, this is the bpd doing its thing)

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Yayaya tagging system time!

#ah rambling - general yapping tag

#[MN/funger] rambling - ramblings of MN or funger

#[MN/funger] bangers - memes/shitposts of that fandom

#oc time - posts about the little OCs I have (currently empty. DW about it)

#unnamed girlie - posts about my self insert. (UG for short)

#UG spoilers - in case you wanna go through the UG tag but not be spoiled about the endings and such.

#guy in my head - headcanon posts

#doodle tag - stuff not high effort enough to put into my art blog goes here

#reblog moment - reblogs! So you can filter them out

#lovesick - yandere / obsessive behaviour

#gatito - kitty tag.

#belalang beloveds - grasshopper tag. Belalang is grasshopper in Malay :)

#art save - images I wanna draw (typically memes I wanna draw with my guys)

#art reference material - reblogs of posts with helpful art stuff

#general reference material - reblogs of posts with whatever that isn't art. Not really 'general' perse but I don't have another word

#epic meowtual art - art by the meowtuals!

#ask game - reblogs of ask game posts

#ask game answer - answers to asks abt the ask game

#hello asker - ask tag

#tag game - reblog of posts that are meant to have you tag other ppl to continue the chain

#negative. And #/negative are used for vent posts. Make those sometimes.

#hxrny aroace on main - (mind the x) epic posts where I feel feelings for some characters (carnally)

#fanfic shit idfk - posts related to fanfics I'm reading (or something like that)

#girl what you on?? - posts where I'm in some sort of delirium, talking to my beloveds. And being ill about them.

#shit I send to fictional guy - posts I'd send to fictional characters. Will prob have their name tagged too.

#unnamed oc core - wow it's just like him fr. Many things will be tagged this btw. They are not okay. (Same person as UG jsyk)

#pocketkitty - for posts I don't want in the pocket.cat tag or reblogging posts that are like pocket.cat. (only applies to him everyone else gets tagged with their name in posts that are like them)

#robot nephew - similar to pocketkitty just that it's. Mr robo.t K.y

#silly doctor man - I fell into gui.lty g.ear and now I'm in love with this bozo. When I don't want it to be in the main tag. Yes like pocketkitty and robo bo.

#mister omelette - guy that asks which came first the chicken or the egg. Answers himself, it's omelette.

#mask quartet - fucking stupid masked bitches trying to save humanity gone wrong

Liveblog tags:

Guilty gear: #pride in my gears: sign, #pride in my gears: rev, #pride in my gears: overture, #pride in my gears: strive

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Tag me in stuff you think I like!! I don't mind! Or like tag games.

There's also a *cough cough* side blog. For degenerate thoughts of mine. If you want it just give a DM ig.

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Pictures i want here

(This applies mostly to Faust. Sorry not sorry Faust. I will give you the worst horrors.)

(This is me any time someone mentions Conclave. I wish I could say I was exaggerating. I'll just say that Conclave has spiked my libido and I've been the fastest to draw suggestive art of them and write smut of them than of any other character I've fallen in love with. I need them carnally. And I tell you, it is a need.)

[bluebeads-art]

Man. I've already been struggling with... I guess identity issues with art for over a year now. I've been making and sharing art online for literally as long as I can remember, all the way back to when I was a kid lying about my age to get on DeviantArt. So long that art and sharing that art is a core pillar of how I see myself, how I interact with others, and likely how others see me. I want to see fellow artists, I want my art to be seen, and to have an archive that I can point at and say, "I created all that!"

I'd been trying so, so hard to get back into drawing and modeling more these past few months, I guess because I feel like I have to. I always have and always will be an artist. But these past few years of social media CEOs proving time and time again that they can and will trample artists and trans people for profit and- idfk- their amusement? spite? jealousy? I don't know where to share my art anymore. I don't know if I want to make art anymore. It feels insane that I'm even questioning that, I'm an artist and always will be, but... I don't know, the state of the internet and the world has been pretty soul-shattering lately.

As much as I try to just draw for my own fulfillment and ignore that it's most likely getting chewed up and spat out by machine learning, or that some moderator can just decide they don't like me and nuke my little archive of art that I've been happily creating for over a decade now, it's making the thought of sharing my art on social media rather paranoia-inducing and quite frankly just sad to me. Sure, I could move to Cohost or BlueSky or something, but starting an account and having barely any new art to post there is also just deeply, deeply sad to me.

I don't have a conclusion to this post. I don't know what the future of this blog is going to be like, or the future of my art in general. Just getting some thoughts out, I guess.

EDIT: Something I wanted to add is that I have no plans to delete this blog. I'm an archivist at heart, and deleting information makes me die inside. That means if this blog does disappear, it got taken down against my will. I don't think it's likely to happen, but figured I'd mention this just in case. :/

[fenmere]

thank you @the-letterbox-archives for the tag!

This is an OC questionaire, and these questions were chosen by letter. We're going to have the cast of The End of the Tunnel answer them, because that's our upcoming book!

"what's your relationship with your family like?" Ashwin: "I've left them, permanently, most likely to never see most of them again, to visit another planet - Earth. Even though I've lived more than a full life already, and have existed several decades beyond the end of my vessel's lifespan, I do think I regret it. I was more than desperately ready for something new, but I was not so ready to lose those connections." Phage: "I am not a living being. I do not have a lineage like you may be familiar with. And I am the kind of thing that doesn't tend to have equals. But I have had a child, Ni'a, and I find that I love them very dearly. I do not think that I have been a good parent to them. Not by anybody else's standards. I don't know how. But they have never complained. I will not pretend that this experience helps me understand people any better." Sarah: "Goreth and I were an only child. Our parents tried to raise us better than their parents did, but they screwed up a lot. And besides our surviving Grandma, our extended family are all bigots. We've got a lot of trauma from all this and are estranged from almost all of them. In many ways, Phage has been more of a family member for us than anybody else. Anyway, Goreth and I are basically twins, and we're the core of any family we may have now. We're hoping we can build a new one from our queer friends." Goreth: "To elaborate on what Sarah's saying, I think we've actually got a family going with Peter and Abigail, our housemates. And with Erik and the Audreys, too. We've been there for each other in ways our biological families never were." Erik: "They're... a lot. If we're talking about my folks and sibs. I love them, but also I can't deal with them a lot of the time. I need them, but they honestly don't seem to need me, and it shows. They think they need the person they think I am. And I'm a whole different thing than that." the Audreys: *shrugs* "I got to take my computer with me when I moved out."

"do you have any hobbies? if so, what ones?" Ashwin: "The concept of hobbies is fascinating to me. Where I come from we only have an Art and then we have other skills. These things maybe classify as hobbies to most humans, at least those that live in and around Portland. But, it seems to me that a hobby is defined as something one does for oneself when one is not working. Is that correct? We don't have work on the Sunspot. We only have our Art and our distractions and the things we do to make others happy. We just... It's a totally different way of thinking and I don't know if I can explain it well enough. In any case, I used to think I didn't have an Art. But lately I've been finding that studying anything about linguistics fills me with this profound sense of calm and purpose that I've never felt before." Phage: "My hobby is life itself. In all of its expressions and experiences." Sarah: "Well, we're unemployed and unable to work, but we have a Patreon and the people who donate to it do so in order to keep us healthy enough to do what we love when we have time. Which makes our hobbies our work, I guess? I draw. That's my favorite thing. I also like to watch movies and the newer cartoon shows. I used to read a lot, but that's been really hard to do lately." Goreth: "I want to be a writer. I want to write novels. But, I've never had any luck making one work, so I've been getting that energy out by keeping our Patreon and social media accounts up to date. It's really more of a creative outlet than it sounds, though. In a way I've already written a novel. It's just scattered across several blogs. Oh, and I guess I collect things. I don't really think about it though, it just happens. Kind of my nature." Erik: "Horror movies, horror novels, horror shows, and experiencing horror in real life. Also dancing and being a smart ass. Oh, and monster spotting. It's like bird watching, but with monsters. There's probably other hobbies, but since my other headmates aren't awake right now, I can't remember them." the Audreys: "We kind of have a lot. But we don't really have the time for any of them. Too busy with work, which used to be a hobby. Hanging out with Erik and the Ampersands is really where we get our big break. But we rewatch Venture Brothers a lot, I guess. Also Disney movies. But that's like in the background while we work."

"do you dream often? what about?" Ashwin: "I'm not sure I know the difference between a dream and experiencing most of my life in the inworld of someone else's psyche. I was originally a fellow system member of the Minbàoni, and I gained consciousness and identity before I ever took the front and piloted their vessel. Once we got our neural terminal, I spent a lot of time on the Network, away from my system, and that was a lot like vividly dreaming in and of itself. Sarah and Goreth dream quite a bit, and I've been part of that since I've joined them. I'm still trying to make sense of that." Phage: "No. But I appear in dreams on occasion. I find it's an excellent way to talk to someone who isn't otherwise able to see or hear me." Sarah: "We have had so many recurring nightmares, even after our mom taught us how to face them. There's just always something. The nightmares of our childhood are our empowerment dreams now, and we often go flying or chasing monsters when we have them. But then, the next night, we'll have a nightmare about arguing with our parents in their kitchen. Our better dreams are the ones where our headmates hold a council meeting, or get together with us to play some kind of internal role playing game." Goreth: *gestures at Sarah* "That. Except, also, lately, I've been learning how to assert my actual shape in our dreams, and I get to spend a lot of time as the dragon I am. To the point where I think I prefer dreaming to being awake." Erik: "If I could remember my dreams, I'm pretty sure I could write the best movie scripts. But I'm glad I can't. I dream enough when I'm awake, I really don't need to experience that shit at night too." the Audreys: "Some of us do, and some of us can't even visualize an apple. It's kinda weird. Those of us that do dream have pretty vivid memories of exploring our inworld, to the point we've been able to map it out. You can read about it and see our diagrams on our wiki. But I don't think our dreams are anything like anybody else's. They're almost all internal politics."

We're not going to tag anybody else. Consider yourself invited to do this, and go ahead an tag us if you answer our questions. Questions for your OCs: 1. What is your favorite thing to do to avoid responsibility?

2. If you could choose anyone in your world to be your sibling, who would it be?

3. What is the most sublime thing you have ever eaten, and why?

[loose-and-goose]

Porque No Los Dos?

Musings on Persephone and Her Girlbossification for Classicstober2023

I think I first learned about the Homeric Hymn to Demeter in elementary school, but even then, it was all about Persephone and Hades.

This was a fourth or fifth grade reader, so the story naturally had to be boiled down 'til the very marrow was sucked from its bones, but even then, I can't remember any mention of Demeter. Despite the myth bearing her name and largely being about her, Demeter was already removed from the narrative back in the early 2000s.

When I consider this, I feel that I can't genuinely pin the blame on current writers. After all, the Renaissance artists were more obsessed with depicting the “rape” of Persephone than the grief of her mother, so this current situation has been long in the making. But I do think that I am not mistaken to couple her subsequent transformation into a modern feminist icon with my contemporaries.

Apparently, I first took issue with this back in 2018. When I look through the archives of my blog, I see some cute HadesxPersephone art, modernizations, etc, and according to my tags I really love them. But then in 2018, I encountered a post saying:

“Hey, you know the original myth of Persephone when she was still Core/Kora and instead of being kidnapped, she willingly went down into the Underworld and decided that she liked it there/wanted to do good there? I need a copy of it.”

This post was then reblogged with an added rebuttal, clarifying that this “original myth” does not exist. Since then, I've encountered at least three other posts with thousands of notes that either outright claim that “originally”, Persephone was not kidnapped, or that actually, there are “pre-patriarchal” versions of most Greek myths, which we are purposely kept from reading in order to maintain the status quo (patriarchy).

These claims are never supplemented with any classical sources, and they always, always, have thousands of notes.

I want to preface this by saying that I don't think there's anything wrong with modernizing or retelling these myths. That's how we keep them living, keep them relevant. I still enjoy a funny rendition of Hades and Persephone that characterizes Hades as the wife-guy of all time.

No, I think my issue is with the desire to concoct a revisionist history to justify it.

I guess the question is, “So what if Persephone was kidnapped?” Regardless of how she and Hades met, the outcome is the same: Hades turns out to be a good husband who loves and respects his wife.

What I'm getting at is this: why does acknowledging Persephone's background somehow make her less respectable? Why does she have to willingly go to the underworld? Why does she have to hate her mother and run away? Why do you need this version of her story to exist, when it simply doesn't?

Persephone is a young girl. It's in her name. She is the prototype, the stereotype, she is the stand in for every young girl of her time. She represents their realities, she represents what could happen to them in a moment's notice. She embodies a very real fear for girls and maybe even more so for (let's not forget the name of the hymn again) mothers.

What am I trying to say? Let me see if I can figure it out. I don't think I'm saying anything new. I just saw that today's theme was Persephone and when I think of Persephone, this is what I always think of.

She is a goddess in her own right. Beloved by her husband. Given power by her husband. I think she is what many a young girl in ancient times hoped to become someday, whenever the seemingly unavoidable happened: A woman who was valued as an equal in her home, even in a greater world where she was not.

I think we shouldn't have to change Persephone's truth in order to find value in her. And we shouldn't have to fabricate an alternate timeline where Greece was a matriarachal society and Persephone hit her mother with the, “No mom, I'm giving up on your dream.” before sashaying a way into the underworld to justify her value.

Write what you want to write. I can't stop you, won't stop you, don't want to stop you. But as Madeline Miller's new book is on its way, I can only hope that maybe someone, someone, will find it in themselves to acknowledge that Persephone and Hades' shitty start doesn't disqualify her from being meaningful. Inasmuch as there is power in saying “actually, Persephone only did what she wanted to do”, there is also power in saying, “Persephone didn't always get to choose, but her situation did not spell out her end. It got better. Spring will come again”.

[nekole-doodles]

Hello and welcome to my blog :D (This will get updated every once in a while)

She/her and Omnisexual :]

Minor

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I mainly share and ramble about my AUs and headcanons for my current hyperfixations and occasionally post my art :)

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Main Fandoms(Hyperfixations): DSMP, QSMP, FNaF

Minor Fandoms: Hermitcraft(:O New fixation), Jujutsu Kaisen, Detroit: Become Human, Good Omens, Steven Universe(the OG hyperfixation), The Owl House, Gravity Falls, The Amazing Digital Circus, The Magnus Archives(only on Ep 16 ToT), Yuri!!! On Ice, Violet Evergarden, Haikyuu(more of an old SUPER hyperfixation rather than a current casual fixation but it still has a special place in my heart for being my first MAJOR hyperfixation)

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Basic Boundaries(I guess you could call them boundaries?):

Have a basic sense of human decency and common sense in comments, asks, or reblogs.

Reblogs and comments are definitely welcome, just no reposting or claiming my art(even though I doubt my art is worth claiming ahdksj)

My DSMP/QSMP posts are ONLY TALKING ABOUT THE CHARACTER, not the creator, please don't harass me in the ask box, comments, and etc about that kind of stuff

Also, a little less important, but I'm trying not talk about real-life politics in my blog and keeping it mostly fandom things since I don't really like talking about politics and I don't have the right to since I don't know the full story of everything going on and don't want to spread misinformation. This blog was created mostly to talk about my hyperfixations and share my thoughts, headcanons, AUs, analyzations, and fanart, so I will try and keep it that way.

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Ask Box: Currently open

You can ask me about my AUs, headcanons, and stuff like that :> Just don't be weird and have common sense when sending an ask

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Personal Tags for my blog and new ones will be added (individual AU tags are in the next section):

#nekole's rambles

#nekole's talks <- This is for my text posts that aren't exactly me rambling but just sharing my thoughts and things like that

#nekole's art

#nekole's doodles <- Specifically my art in my silly style

#nekole's aus <- All things about my AUs

#nekole's au lore <- All my posts specifically with information about my AUs, especially lore dumps

#nekole's au polls <- This is for whenever I do polls for you guys to help me decide what I should do for an AU if I'm having trouble deciding between different ideas

#nekole's headcanons <- My headcanons for my hyperfixations

#nekole's analyses <- Whenever I analyze anything, mostly fanfics or characters

#nekole's music things <- These could be posts with music recommendations or songs that match characters or really anything music related

#nekole's ocs <- For the rare occasions I actually talk about my OCs

#nekole's scripts <- These posts have scene ideas in script format

#nekole's silly dono chat collection <- This is just a collection of my posts about funny donos or chat messages I see (mostly from Phil's chat)

#nekole's scenery pics <- If I decide to post scenery pictures here again(since some of them could leak my location)

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Tags for my AUs(more will be added as I talk about more of my AUs):

#fullmetal alchemist dsmp au

#fma dsmp au

#we'll meet again

#we'll meet again au

#we'll meet again dsmp au

#wma dsmp au

#wma au

#toh dsmp au

#the owl house dsmp au

#owl house dsmp au

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[genericpuff]

pals, holy sweet mother of-

i was NOT expecting my asks to explode this last week after turning on anon asks

but i guess no one 'expects' explosions otherwise they wouldn't be as effective LMAO

so this is gonna be a general PSA/update to how I'm gonna be doing asks from here on out

my asks are currently a combination of LO crit, questions about Rekindled, and questions about art in general

I said a while back that I would try to start stepping away from LO crit because it just doesn't feel right to me anymore to continue discussing or giving attention to a comic that's flat out morally bankrupt. I stand by that original statement but I've been bad at actually, y'know, putting it into action LMAO Part of it is because 1.) picking apart LO is still very fun, and 2.) it's hard to talk about Rekindled without talking about LO because Rekindled was obviously built on the criticism and disappointment I've had for LO over this past year. If LO wasn't on fire right now, I wouldn't have any kindling to fuel the production of Rekindled.

That being said, as a general PSA, I also don't want people to take my opinion as some kind of Bible. Obviously a lot of people come to my blog because they share similar opinions and enjoy seeing my own takes on them and that's fine, but if you're someone who hasn't read the comic, while I'm spiteful enough to not want to see LO continue to gain attention, I still implore everyone to do their own due diligence and read the comic to come to their own conclusion and opinions, whether or not they happen to match up with my own. Because yes, sometimes even my own takes can be unfounded or easily refuted, and I don't want to be encouraging hivemind behavior from the crit side of the community either. I'll always encourage y'all to come to your own conclusions about the comic and argue my own takes if you wish, just be ready to bring proper defenses and an open mind because I don't tolerate sealioning.

SO!

Going forward, for the sake of my own sanity and fingertips, I'll be mostly prioritizing the following kinds of asks for public responses on my blog:

Questions/discussion about Rekindled

LO-related criticisms IF it's something new or interesting that hasn't been discussed before (because at this point I'm starting to repeat points that I've already made tons of times before or have been made by others that are easy to find through the hashtags or through archives)

Art-related stuff that's got a specific goal in mind. I have a few asks in my inbox right now that are along the lines of "how do you get better at art" and I can't feasibly answer that question in one blog post because that's like asking how one learns quantum mechanics. There are just too many facets of art to go over that I can't reasonably cover, and I'm one person, there are plenty of tutorials, lessons, and communities online that can give you way more varied resources besides just my own singular experience. So if you want to ask art questions, be specific, like if you want to know about shape language or how to do specific digital art tricks or something, that's fine. Just no general "how do I draw" type questions because straight up, learning how to draw is a long-term commitment and can't be covered in a single blog post LMAO

However, I don't like leaving questions unanswered for people either (many of you take much of your own time to send me these massive essays comparable to my own and I'd hate for it to feel wasted) so when it comes to questions that I do want to respond to but not pile up in my blog, I'll simply answer them privately from here on out. It just might take me a bit longer to get back to them so please be patient <3