#i deleted most of my deviantart accounts

[club-penguin]

I miss deviantart all the time 😔 oh to be on deviantart when everyone else was active

[pepprs]

STILL wide awake! i did not put down my phone! and now im hungry. so i will not be sleeping tonight ♥️

[cat-webp]

etiquette for using & crediting art

right, well, I'll get straight to it instead of messing about like in my other tutorials. editblr has a serious problem with people not crediting artists, we all know that, I don't need to talk much about it. but I figured instead of just making one of those posts, I'd make one explaining the etiquette for such things and how you can appropriately use fanart in your edits. oh, and also what could happen if you refuse to offer those credits

contents table:

stop letting them use your shit to train ai models

why credit is important, and what lack of credit could potentially do to your account

how to source your fanart

how to differentiate fanart from official art

how to find credits for art blatantly stolen and reuploaded to pinterest when all the caption says is "credit to the artist!"

knowing and understanding artist boundaries

how to give appropriate credit

alright, cool, let's talk about it

— stop letting them use your shit to train ai models

if you've been on tumblr for a bit, or have just gone through the general settings, you'll probably have noticed that in the visibility tab there's this not-so-fun setting automatically turned off:

yeah. that's fun, isn't it? since you're using fanart, and most artists don't support nor engage with ai, it's basic respect to opt out of such a thing.

settings -> visibility -> bottom option

— why credit is important, and what lack of credit could potentially do to your account

I feel I shouldn't necessarily have to explain why credit is important, but I will anyway. in the plainest terms, they made it, it's theirs, so credit them. it's a simple concept, no? hm, but I know that doesn't sound important to some people, so imagine if someone stole your edits and reuploaded them onto their own blog, but in the caption all it says is "idk who made this originally, sorry" or "credits to artist".. I bet you'd feel pretty pissed off about it, right? your hard work being stolen by someone you've never heard of, who didn't even bother putting in the effort to search for you.

another thing: credit is still important when they're a figurehead in the community you're editing for. yes, their artstyle may be familiar to you and the others in your fandom, but to an outsider it's just another piece of fanart that remains uncredited.

if you use art that doesn't belong to you, and the original artist finds it and doesn't want you using it, you could face a takedown. of course, most artists are kind and would send you a polite notice first, but there's always that chance they could send over a takedown request to your post and therefore your blog with zero warning. three of those, your blog gets deleted. they're incredibly easy to send off, and afaik tumblr gets to them pretty quickly.

oh, and also people typically don't look favourably on those who can't be bothered to credit artists, so you'll end up losing connections with other editors as well, if you care about that.

— how to source your fanart

stay away from pinterest. I cannot stress this enough, I understand that pinterest is by far one of the easiest platforms to find fantastic art on, but having proper credits is more important than the 5 minutes of time shaved off by stealing a reupload.

twitter, instagram, tumblr, pixiv, and deviantart are all good places to search. though, do make sure to check for ai on deviantart especially, it's like a rat infestation over there.

— how to differentiate fanart from official art

fandom wiki. I know, we all hate fandom wiki, but whether your media is popular or unpopular it's likely to have a fandom wiki dedicated to it, and people will archive all official art there. if you're unsure, cross-examine the potential fanart piece with the archive.

if you hate fandom wiki that badly, there's also archival accounts scattered across different platforms, so you can use those.

if the art is official, then for company-ran medias it's normally okay to just add "all art is official" or leave it uncredited; though that's also somewhat of a dick move. but for smaller things like web-comics and games that aren't hosted on any big site, and have no huge monetary support, it's nice to include the name of the artist and/or creator.

— how to find credits for art blatantly stolen and reuploaded to pinterest when all the caption says is "credit to the artist!"

reverse image search, that's my simplest answer. with chrome at least, it comes with a built-in reverse image searcher called google lens. it's normally highly efficient, so for most art pieces it'll pick up on the artist pretty quickly.

but what if it doesn't? what if it just links back to the original pinterest post instead? well, the weird thing about google lens in particular is that it initially retrieves one post it thinks it could originate from—probably the post with the most traffic going to it, but it then also features a "see exact matches" option underneath that first photo.

if you click it, it'll show you a whole lot more examples of the art being used.

normally, you can use that to figure out who made the art, since it'll show you similarly popular recorded instances. however, there are also times when even that fails to grab a source, and you're left only with confusing results. what do you do then?

well, you can either resort to clicking on random sites until you find a username, or you can give up and find a different piece of art to use. it's really just a process of rinse and repeat until you find something usable.

— knowing and understanding artist boundaries

artist boundaries are typically easy to see and simple to understand. they're normally just in the bios of the artists, which is super helpful. however, sometimes they're kept within links placed on the accounts instead. if you can't immediately see a list of boundaries, then instead start looking for (typically) a link to one of these sites:

carrd

rentry

strawpage

lit.link

skeb (though skeb can sometimes block itself if you have parental controls on, so be aware of this)

scour through them, and you should get an understanding.

right, and for artists who have bios in foreign languages; just translate it, it's not as if google translate or deepl are impossible to use. not knowing the language isn't an excuse anymore.

however, if they still don't have one available, you might have to start searching keywords on their accounts. of course, such things aren't really possible on da or instagram, but on tumblr and twitter, search up these keywords before giving up on an art piece:

credit

pfp / icon / profile picture

use

your art

on tumblr especially, most asks are tagged with something or other, so you can scroll through and check to see if there's anything there too.

and if there's still nothing.. well, just ask the artist about it. if you don't want to do that, then it's not a good idea to use it, and it's back to the drawing board for you.

— how to give appropriate credit

by including "art credit - (username)" in the description, ordinarily. however, you should note that most people who use rentry graphics don't care for art credits, and won't include them if they're using said graphics. so, that's why you put a watermark on it, so it's basically like forcing credit to be given. it doesn't have to be anything big or flashy, but it does need to be readable, so simple fonts work well.

oh, and ideally there should be a direct link back to the art piece, so if people want to use it also they don't have to scroll through someone's entire account trying to find it.

anyway, hope that helped somewhat. if it didn't, then pop into my askbox and I'll explain things further.

[captdedeyes]

Friendly reminder that Wix.com is an Israeli-based company (& some website builders to look into instead)

I know the BDS movement is not targeting Wix.com specifically (see here for the companies they're currently boycotting) but since Wix originated in Israel as early as 2006, it would be best to drop them as soon as you can.

And while you're at it, you should leave DeviantArt too, since that company is owned by Wix. I deleted my DA account about a year ago not just because of their generative AI debacle but also because of their affiliation with their parent company. And just last month, DA has since shown their SUPPORT for Israel in the middle of Israel actively genociding the Palestinian people 😬

Anyway, I used to use Wix and I stopped using it around the same time that I left DA, but I never closed my Wix account until now. What WAS nice about Wix was how easy it was to build a site with nothing but a drag-and-drop system without any need to code.

So if you're using Wix for your portfolio, your school projects, or for anything else, then where can you go?

Here are some recommendations that you can look into for website builders that you can start for FREE and are NOT tied to a big, corporate entity (below the cut) 👇👇

Carrd.co

This is what I used to build my link hub and my portfolio, so I have the most experience with this platform.

It's highly customizable with a drag-and-drop arrangement system, but it's not as open-ended as Wix. Still though, it's easy to grasp & set up without requiring any coding knowledge. The most "coding" you may ever have to deal with is markdown formatting (carrd provides an on-screen cheatsheet whenever you're editing text!) and section breaks (which is used to define headers, footers, individual pages, sections of a page, etc.) which are EXTREMELY useful.

There's limits to using this site builder for free (max of 2 websites & a max of 100 elements per site), but even then you can get a lot of mileage out of carrd.

mmm.page

This is a VERY funny & charming website builder. The drag-and-drop system is just as open-ended as Wix, but it encourages you to get messy. Hell, you can make it just as messy as the early internet days, except the way you can arrange elements & images allows for more room for creativity.

Straw.page

This is an extremely simple website builder that you can start from scratch, except it's made to be accessible from your phone. As such, the controls are limited and intentionally simple, but I can see this being a decent website builder to start with if all you have is your phone. The other options above are also accessible from your phone, but this one is by far one of the the simplest website builders available.

Hotglue.me

This is also a very simple & rudimentary website builder that allows you to make a webpage from scratch, except it's not as easy to use on a mobile phone.

At a glance, its features are not as robust or easy to pick up like the previous options, but you can still create objects with a simple double click and drag them around, add text, and insert images or embeds.

Mind you, this launched in the 2010s and has likely stayed that way ever since, which means that it may not have support for mobile phone displays, so whether or not you wanna try your hand at building something on there is completely up to you!

Sadgrl's Layout Editor

sadgrl.online is where I gathered most of these no-code site builders! I highly recommend looking through the webmaster links for more website-building info.

This simple site builder is for use on Neocities, which is a website hosting service that you can start using for free. This is the closest thing to building a site that resembles the early internet days, but the sites you can make are also responsive to mobile devices! This can be a good place to start if this kind of thing is your jam and you have little to no coding experience.

Although I will say, even if it sounds daunting at first, learning how to code in HTML and CSS is one of the most liberating experiences that anyone can have, even if you don't come from a website scripting background. It's like cooking a meal for yourself. So if you want to take that route, then I encourage to you at least try it!

Most of these website builders I reviewed were largely done at a glance, so I'm certainly missing out on how deep they can go.

Oh, and of course as always, Free Palestine 🇵🇸

[seasideoranges]

The Ancient Zukka Texts - Fan Art

So, A couple of days ago, I shared this piece of fanart.

Zukka: Tramps Like Us by Luffy-Kun on Deviantart! For a while, this was the oldest piece of Zukka fanart I could find, posted on September 29, 2006, but after I shared this, I was wondering if I could find something older for fun! Maybe the oldest piece of fanart posted? Something that I originally thought would take a bit of time - only took about less than 30 minutes thanks to my friend @firelilysky who found this piece below!

Zuko x Sokka by Katja129 - posted on March 22, 2005 - FOUR WEEKS after the show began airing! I'm also going to go ahead and share the description they wrote -

The description has me laughing so much, from referring to Sokka and Zuko as 'not all too important', to the nostalgia of how the text is written, it was a fun time reading this with friends haha. I also wanted to give a shoutout to user fedishi on Deviantart!

The first and second piece were also posted in 2005, and so far, these two users are the only ones I found while searching for zukka art posted around the same time period. I was wondering if it was possible to find something older, but I believe Katja129 wins the prize for having the oldest piece of Zukka art currently uploaded online! Most ATLA forums I tried looking for to see if I could find more art are only accessible through the wayback machine, and even then, most, if not all the media links are broken - or posts are straight up inaccessible without an account. In regards to Deviantart, unfortunately, a lot of art is now gone now due to the passage of time and people deleting old accounts/posts, but even then, it'd be pretty hard to find art posted less then 4 weeks after the show began airing! I'll end on this note; I was going to share more, but this post is already getting long, so instead I'll share this link! It's a link to my Deviantart account, and I currently have a gallery for Zukka art pre-2010! Go ahead and take a look if you're curious!

[birdon14]

Alright, I'll warn my followers and fellow Kirby anime fans here too.

I'll delete this post later.

Beware of the Newgrounds user Gomogora (DeviantArt: Gomogora534)

This guy harassed me for 3 years.

You can read more detail on my twitter, but let me show you the unhinged drawings he made about me and the messages he send me:

warning: bloody/violent images, slurs, homophobia

This year, he drew my persona killed and did a bizarre hate art directed at my 'headcanons'. Dude is pissed simply because he thinks I hate Metaknight?

And here just recently gave me glorious message on Bluesky, containing all kinds of slurs and insults. This was on October 24th. He actively looked after me on his new accounts just to insult me and block me right after like a coward. The darkveemon account got deleted, but his main account is still there. (He has an interest in Digimon so that checks out as well.)

Another unhinged message under my reddit post back from August 2023:

He pretty much acts like a snake around people he's friendly with. Once you are one of the people he decides to hate on, he spews all kinds of slurs and insults at you. If he acts LGBT-friendly, remember that these are the texts he messaged me, an open lesbian. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Also, every time he drew Sirica, he always has this need to dunk on my headcanons lol. Appearantly my Sirica headcanons are all just about being crazy and hating Metaknight lmao

so yeah, those are the most important informations I need to share. Do not harass him back, just be cautious if you ever run into him and block him. I reported him on NG, he got a warning and one of the first images got deleted by NG self (the one with sprites got deleted by Gomogora himself, a few days earlier). Thankfully, he doesn't have a tumblr as far as I know.

It's best to stay away from him. That's all.

There are more informations I could share, but I don't think I need to repeat everything from my twitter thread:

https://x.com/ManniBirdon/status/1850981553196974496

[wishingstarinajar]

I made the decision a while ago but today I made an announcement about it; I'm done posting my art to Twitter. I won't be uploading there for a long time, if ever again.

I will not delete my account though, or my tweets. It's over ten years old, I can't part with it so abruptly. Worrying about AI training is pointless because I'm pretty sure my art has already been dragged through some AI training over the past one to two years, be it over there or on Instagram, maybe even DeviantArt and Pixiv or heck, even this place. Who knows.

I also won't blame people for sticking with Twitter as their main platform, and/or being hesitant to start over elsewhere. It's tough and, no matter how terrible Twitter has become with the inability to fully block harassers/minors and not allowing you to opt out of training Musk's AI with your posts and media, it is still one of the places where most traffic passes. There are also plenty of people unaware of what exactly is happening.

I've seen some artists say they will keep their account up for the sole purpose of avoiding some scammer claiming their alias after leaving, and that's totally fair! Impersonation is scary. But many aren't aware that the Muskrat quietly snuck in a new policy not too long ago that a long period of inactivity (+30 days) will (or might!) permanently terminate your account. You can't leave it aside and let it gather dust just to keep your alias out of other people's hands. So keep that in mind when you go for this tactic.

I will be here and on Bluesky. Bluesky is still implementing new and helpful features so it's growing and doing remarkably well.

[lumarisart]

Meta & TikTok

With how the US is trying to digitally colonize the online space, I think it's soon going to be time for me to shudder the doors of my Meta accounts - if not delete, then just abandon them. TikTok with its likely ban will set a precident that the USA can bully into selling to them any foreign-controlled site, game, social media, or store that it wants to by claiming "data privacy" - which is rich given the USA regularly has to send out warnings to citizens about data breaches of its OWN companies. So yeah, it's a dangerous step in a direction I'm not happy about. META is cozying up to the Orange, and has stated it wants to be the next Elon's Bastardized Twitter. I knew it was going to happen back when they introduced their own version of "being verified" as a subscription service. The service is just working as normal instead of throttling and shadowbanning your posts and profile. I don't think that algorithm throttling has happened full force, but I already see my posts barely getting seen as it used to, and that was the last place I got regular commission work. Upon further reflection though, MOST of my current clients are people who know me/have followed me a while/have commissioned before. So the question - do I REALLY need META for my business to continue? Or is it already shot in the barrel and I should begin cutting it out? I think the answer is clear. I won't pay to make a service work as it should, and I'm sick and tired of billionaires thinking we'll just roll over. Well, ya'll made cost of living so fucking expensive, what makes you think I'd part $20 a month for your shitty user experience?

I'm not a fulltime artist, I'm part time and work a day job. Still, my art pulls in $200-$500 a month and that's nothing the shirk, that's half to all my groceries in a month (I'm a parent and have 5 pets, food is expensive!) NOT TO EVEN MENTION the removal of protection for anti bullying and harrassment of minorities and sexual identities. I'm nonbinary, and ALL MY books are queer. The way the cesspool, ALREADY bad, is going to be even more embolden? It's a fucking joke.

So anyway, expect more of me here. Tumblr and BlueSky are looking to be better than the alternatives. I'll also be revisiting DeviantART more often, as my art still gets seen there the most. Take care everyone, hope I don't annoy yall too much lol

[drunkcleric-art]

spent most of the day cleaning after my other dog was feelin poorly (the other one is now fine, so I'm convinced he's just after the attention!)

and have been feeling eh when doing art - so took a break from classes and manhandling myself into working by drawing some decade old ocs from my DeviantArt days - going through my old dA was both so nostalgic and so, so painful

I gotta redesign these guys - most are from adoptable accounts that are no longer active/deleted :C

[kristak-throwaway]

krisgoat = tiktak masterpost

CONTENT WARNING: tiktak requests no minors interact with her content. it is not a crime to have a nsfw account unrelated to your sfw community. don't be an asshole, and don't seek out or interact with her content if you are a minor.

THIS IS NOT A CALL TO HARASS KRISGOAT/TIKTAK.

21kkn/zoro, a former mod of goatlings, has recently spoken up about their time spent working for krisgoat. i would heavily recommend reading their own posts on the topic to learn about their experience working as a site artist. in one of these posts, zoro includes the following video, which has dropped a massive bombshell.

part 1: the video

21kkn has stated kris has since deleted her side of the conversation, but honestly, i think it's still damning even without any response that 100% proves it. there was clearly a conversation here. kris clearly had to have replied without denying the account was hers.

21kkn also pulls up krisgoat's account for proof, which does indeed share a joindate and unique @ with kris's actual discord.

part 2: the art

the next piece of evidence that points to krisgoat being tiktakvt is in tiktak's art. you used to be able to find tiktak's art on multiple accounts under the same name, including toyhouse, but she has since privated a lot of her art.

here are some examples that have been backed up:

compared to some goats drawn by kris:

part 3: the timing

tiktakvt also has had a few suspiciously-timed tweets that coincide with events on goatlings.

most notably, this recent one (from september 29th, 2024: before monster masquerade preparations began) that was deleted.

and then this one, which is still available to view as of october 10th, 2024:

citing "overtime at work" in between the giving tree update (april 6th, 2024) and the start of the jestling event (april 12th, 2024).

there is also this tweet announcing a birthday stream hosted on april 1st...

...while krisgoat's birthday, according to her deviantart, appears to be march 31st.

what does this mean?

well, on its own, having a sidegig as a vtuber (and making suggestive/adult content) is not a crime. this post wasn't made to say that krisgoat is a horrible person for having a hobby and spending money from her job on said hobby. kris is an adult who can do what she wants.

what it means for kris to be tiktak, though, is that there are serious questions to ask about just why kris has ignored requests time and time again for transparency on where money for the site is going.

we don't have money for a palestine fundraiser, we need money for the programmer (despite the only recent change, to my knowledge, being the addition of tabs), and we need a fundraiser at the end of the year to compensate the mod team, but tiktak had enough money to buy a full-body rig, which was bought from stardustgummy 3 years ago.

from there, it's easy to find stardustgummy's commission rates.

full-body rigs don't come cheap.

let's return to goatlings staff and 21kkn. while krisgoat seems to have been paying upwards of $800 for her full rig, her staff was initially being paid in virtual currency for their work.

the most commonly accepted conversion rate between diamond dust and US dollars is 100dd = 1usd. which means her art staff was being paid the equivalent of $15-20 per fully rendered fullbody piece for her site.

not to mention, from the mod behind mascot livechats' dev log post:

staff has a lot on their plate, and there is simply not enough staff onboard to cover everything.

(statement from 21kkn's post, linked above)

while staff is trying to juggle many different responsibilities all at once, kris has shown no interest in hiring more staff/volunteers. while i can understand wanting a more close-knit group of trusted people for your site, i strongly feel this preference should be reconsidered when staff is being given this much to do.

and while staff is juggling with site duties, kris has apparently been streaming roblox, doing personal commissions, and recording tiktok dances as tiktakvt.

we don't know for sure that kris is neglecting her goatlings duties/that she's underpaying her staff

that's true, and that leads into the final point: we don't know for sure because there is no transparency at all from kris herself regarding goatlings. if we had been given any hint in the past of where money spent on diamond dust is going, perhaps it would be easier to chalk this up as an innocent hobby on the side.

it is simply because kris has not been fully transparent about how things work behind the scenes, after months of users asking for it on "the state of goatlings" thread and beyond, that makes tiktakvt (and her actions) questionable.

what's the bottom line?

we want transparency. that's it. things haven't meaningfully changed onsite for years, we're backed up on updates that have been promised for who knows how long, the only statement we have about how kris pays her staff points to very suspicious business practices and use of funds, even if kris began paying her staff in real-world currency later on.

and again: don't harass krisgoat or tiktakvt over this. don't try to "out" her or do anything stupid like that. you are not helping, you do not look cool, you look like an asshole.

closing notes

mentioning this information onsite or in the discord may lead to the termination of your goatlings account. be very cautious.

consider donating to a family found on gazafunds.com.

if you have any information/screenshots on kris's poor handling of resources for palestine as it relates to tiktak's streaming gig, please contact me. thank you.

[jesncin]

https://www.tumblr.com/meeceisme/743618932121976832/tumblr-you-done-goofed?source=share

https://www.pillowfort.social/log_in

okay so I've been getting a bunch of asks that have been just links to tumblr posts talking about the whole tumblr/ai thing. And while I get that these probably mean well and are informing me on what's going on, cryptically leaving links in my asks without context feels really spammy and just bizarre. I normally delete them, but I'm replying to this one to both set a boundary and share my opinion on the situation.

While I respect the decision for the other creatives leaving tumblr if this recent AI nonsense thing is a deal breaker for them- I will not be leaving tumblr. I've come to really love this place! It's a breath of fresh air from twitter, where I always have to be tight lipped, professional and tone police myself constantly. I get to nerd out about superhero stuff here, in a community of like-minded people that encourage me! Tumblr's the only place I feel comfortable enough to let loose and be really silly.

You can skip this if you don't want to read a mini pillowofort review. I already have a pillowfort account, it's on my pinned post. I gave it a try, but pillowfort still has a lot of growing to do. I tried their group forum things, posting into art + comics groups and talking to people, but it rarely resulted in building a connection. I even found a DC Comics group! For a fandom that big, it sure feels weird when for a good while I was the only one posting in that group. It kind of reminded me of Deviantart groups where they can sometimes build communities, but most people just use them to give their art traction and visibility. They didn't have a way to toggle my dashboard/TL so that I can filter between groups/tags/the people I actually follow. So most of the time I'm seeing people spam post into groups and can hardly see what the artists I follow are posting :( As a site, it still has a ways to go.

If yall want to follow me elsewhere, I'm on cohost (it's not perfect either, but I'm actually able to connect with people there- and I can toggle between users and tags I follow)! And I'm still on twitter and instagram. I only post jl remix and fanon stuff here for the most part though.

[applestitches]

Hello, I have reflected on my faults due to events that have happened today, and I’ve decided that this would be a good time to create an apology post for those faults so I can move on from them along with detaching myself from them too.

So the first fault to start off with is a certain Deviantart account (that I will not be naming in this post, if you know which one then you know) I had created back in June to make fun of the users on there, and if you’ve been on that website for a bit you’d know what I was making fun of, but I had used the South Park characters and that was extremely inappropriate of me to do, for a laugh or not. A small temporary laugh is never worth the life long consequences, especially on the internet since nothing is truly deleted. I was honestly just looking for anything to make myself feel better with a laugh but a chose a really bad option and I’m sorry if I disappointed anyone with my actions here, I’m very very very sorry, I regret it so much.

By the time this post goes up, most of the art on that page will be gone and few drawings that I had decided to stay up will be up. There will be no way to interact with it because I wish to no longer be associated with it and to move on from it and remove some bad things that I should have never done in the first place. Even just for a laugh. I will never do anything like this again.

Secondly I want to say sorry for "the death" chapter of heavenparkawesome because it can be seen as inappropriate because of me depicting a character with nothing on (not in an explicit way, but still). I promise that if I ever release another page he will magically receive clothes, I very much apologize for this.

Finally, I’ve decided I am no longer going to post or reblog anything that is associated with shipping and will only stick to canon relationships, like Stan and Wendy and Tweek and Craig. I’m doing this to stay out of trouble with the fandom and to lay low with things like that, sorry to disappoint anyone who enjoyed that genre of my art. I don’t need to be shipping characters anyway.

I’m not going to quit or do that "I’m going to take a break for awhile, boohoo!" because of this, like I said previously, I want to move on from these things and make a few changes. No is obligated to forgive me, hell, you can start disliking me for these things I just confessed in this post. I don’t care, all I care is about me being able to continue to post fanart for my favorite show without any trouble following me.

I’m sorry

[celestiall0tus]

Future Projects

Hey y'all! I've popped up to share my latest projects that I will be working on moving forward. And, quite honestly, I'm excited. And for any that may ask, no, none of them are miraculous related. I've come to realize just how burnt out I am on Miraculous as I work on a little something I committed to that it is for the best that I have stepped away from Miraculous.

Alright! Let's get into this!

First on the block is Hazbin Hotel. With Day of the Fall at near completion (as I said, there is a page or two left to draw) I will be preparing another comic series with the star of this show being the original dick, Adam! This story will take place after he's killed by Niffty and falls to hell. This comic will heavily focus on the psychology of Adam because, honestly, I think it's fucking fascinating. There's so many layers to Adam, how he acts, what he's been told, and getting to unfold it all will be a wonderful delight.

This comic with Adam as our star will feature Roo as the main antagonist of sorts, but also Adam himself as reality comes to slap him in the face and he's left to see the consequences of his actions. The two unnamed exorcist angels (named Celeste and Astra by Roo) will be delegated to minor characters as their story was meant to be a catalyst for the Nephilim AU which is where this Adam story will also take place. In this AU, they were the first exorcist angels to fall. The first of many.

Again, I'm looking forward to this purely because of the psychology of Adam, what can be explored, and how even the most irredeemable on paper, can be shown the light. I truly do believe that Adam has that potential, and I'm going to explore it. For one lesson I learned personally is that sometimes we need to fall in order to get back up and see the light.

And as an additional little side note, I do have more plans with Roo because I find them and the other nameless entity interesting. What most would call the personification of good and evil, I call order and chaos. Which, honestly, is fucking cool.

NEXT! Steven Universe.

A little backstory. Before I was CelestialL0tus, I was a content creator known as Fushion-Frenzy. I was relatively known in the Steven Universe fandom on Deviantart back during the show's main run and its hay days. However, I was in a terrible mental head space at that time and didn't have the real help that I needed. I did, but it still took years after that to really ground myself. And one of the things I did was beg for attention without being able to return on the promises I made, so I deleted that account, running like a little bitch and ready to let Fushion-Frenzy die forever.

However, I have returned to some of the things I did while I was that. I won't be reprising all the characters I had in the SU universe as a lot of them was connected with an old friend's OC and I'm completely out of touch with him after an incident that neither of us took well. Well, I didn't. He still wanted to be friends after that, but I couldn't. The hurt ran too deep. Like a betrayal.

That's why I went forward with the Rejuvenation shorts to remake the OCs I had and wanted to keep. I'm working on stories to introduce them, but I will be starting with the one that started it all: Sunstone. I'll be starting with a mini comic that reunites her with Lapis Lazuli (because I once was an OCxcanon shipper and even now can't bring myself to tear away that aspect of Sunstone) after the events of the show, so roughly in Future-ish. As most of what I had done existed outside of the main group and operated on their own.

So, to sum it all up, I will be doing an Adam centric comic that dives into the psychology of him alongside diving into the old SU OCs I was once so ready to toss to the side.

For the people that follow me for Miraculous content, I am truly sorry, but I am severely burnt out on it. I will need time to get through the burn out and all I ask is that you be patient, please. I don't intend on abandoning those works. They still are some of my favorites, but I'm not going to force myself to work on them only to churn out subpar works. If I'm going to create, I will give it my all. Not something that I'll regret later.

Anyway, that's been my rambles. I hope y'all enjoy what I've got cooking.

[hoppscotch]

Hey is the Hoppscotch comic still active? It seems the artist deactivated his tumblr account and his webtoon account hasn’t updated in months. Don’t know where to dig up more info about the artist, since I don’t know about his social media presence or alternative accounts.

Woah this is the first I'm hearing of this. This was a fan account that was made almost seven years ago, and has been mostly inactive since the death of my co-mod nearly five years ago, so needless to say we are not officially affiliated with z-t00n, do not know them personally, and are not incredibly well caught up on their activity. That being said, their twitter does seem to still be up [ https://x.com/z_t00n_ ], though they've deleted seemingly most other social media (such as deviantart, instagram).

It's of course reasonable to be curious where they went and sad or disappointed they've stopped posting, but ultimately it's their decision whether they want to continue having such a large presence on the internet and it's probably best to stay respectful and not spam them with questions or try to investigate too far into their personal life. Not saying you're doing that of course- you asked a fair question, just wanted to mention it in general.

[aerodumb]

Wade/Nancy is an artist who's been surrounded by negative opinions. She currently works under the username Grisgrisdoll, but she's widely known as the name that haunts her past, Kastoway.

I've seen many, many accusations being thrown online against this artist, but I noticed that for many people spreading them this knowledge is secondhand. I found her Deviantart account some time after she changed her username to Kastoway in the beginning of 2014 due to my hyperfixation on creepypastas at the time. I never actually followed her, but I visited her account every now and then, so if I missed something important, it was because of that and I will be glad if you tell me. In this post, I'll list the incidents in chronological order *with evidence* and then give my own opinion at the end.

One thing to know about Wade is that she has had many different names and usernames throughout her life. In addition, she is comfortable with people using either "she", "he" or "they" to refer to her. I'll be alternating the pronouns and using both her names.

He was 13 when she created Ticci Toby [1]. He posted her first drawing of him on the 19th of November 2012 on DeviantArt [2] and Toby's origin story one year later on the 23rd of May 2013 [3]. Wade changed the personality of Toby to make him less upbeat, more tragic and more scary. One of the first instances where he showed discomfort with how people portrayed Toby that I remember was in a publication she posted on the last day of 2013 [4]. This situation ended up with a small redesign of Toby on 5th of February 2014 [5].

She took a short break from DeviantArt around July [6]. It was this year when her creepypasta blew up out of proportion. Previously, she had expressed her desire for Toby to only be shipped with another creepypasta character called Clockwork. However, many people didn't like Clockwork and didn't respect this wish, leading her to further getting tired of the creepypasta community. By october of the same year, her Deviantart bio said: "Most people know me as the creator of the creepypasta story "Ticci-Toby"-- which yes I am, but I prefer not to be constantly called out for it nor only recognized or appreciated for it. I do not contribute to the creepypasta fandom anymore so please don't ask me about it. Thank you" [7].

One issue that is frequently overlooked when discussing Wade's actions is her problem with impersonators, as she stated on a status in November [8].

On 14th of December 2014 he made a post trying to solve all the turmoil that had formed because of shipping [9]. He stated that he had asked people not to ship Toby with anyone but Clockwork because that was what he was comfortable with, but he realized that decision was pointless and didn't care at this point. The situation had gone out of control and there were people bashing creators who shipped Toby with others or with their own characters. He apologized to the hurt and asked people to stop the white knighting. In addition, he recognized "I wasn't prepared for my character to become popular on the internet. I really wasn't. I never thought it would happen and I'm still not good at dealing with it. In fact I suck at it, it's true". He was 15 at the moment.

In 2015, they got into Marvel, even having a tumblr blog where she drew Deadpool replying the asks of her followers. At the end of their bio, it could be read: "I will not reply to notes or comments regarding Ticci-Toby or anything Creepypasta related, sorry." [10]. This message was deleted months later, so their profile didn't mention Toby or creepypasta anymore. They kept the folder for her creepypasta drawings in their gallery tagged as "old".

In April 2016, he had to warn the general public that Toby wasn't real and that he was his creator [11]. People had been spreading misinformation, saying that Toby was real or was based on a real person. Wade feared that something like the tragedy of Wisconsin could happen again, it was a serious concern.

In May, Nancy made a post saying that people could still ask her about Toby [12], but later in June that year, she decided to step off the internet with the purpose of trying to improve her life, archiving the majority of her work [13]. Later in 2017, she updated her bio to let people know about her new instagram account where she mostly posts original art. It was at this point when I stopped checking her content completely, as this account, called bonejars at the beginning, was private for a while. She hasn't been very active on DeviantArt apart from the times she announced her podcast.

On the porch: Episode 2, 16 April 2020, started a wave of negativity against them. I didn't watch it at the time and it is now private so I can't say much about it, but they did some clarifications on her instagram stories later. Many users took screenshots of them and they can still be read [14]. In them, Nancy says that they came to terms many years ago with the ships, that they left the fandom because all of the drama made them miserable and that they'd wish Toby to no longer be associated with the creepypasta fandom. Despite this, they don't want people to stop doing what makes them happy, they said they're ok with headcanons and people reinterpreting the character, that they like the fanart as long as people don't profit from it. They said "I know what escapism is like and using fiction to cope with life. I would never wanna take that away from anybody". Later, they had to make further clarifications because people accused them of wanting to take Toby away from the fandom.

On 25 abril 2021, Nancy posted a new redesign of Toby on his Instagram account [15]. This version of him was significantly different from the last one. The character is older, wears different clothes and looks more realistic due to Nancy's art style development. With this design, he looks like a character from a slasher.

Many people weren't pleased with the redesign due to thinking the reason for it was to invalidate the previous one. Consequently, they brought to the surface controversies from the past. Nancy was accused of having supported two controversial figures in the creepypasta community: Laughing Jack's creator Steve Aikins (Snuffbomb) and Sally Williams' creator Shilo (la_mishi_mish).

Steve presumably harassed his ex-girlfriend and talked indecently with several young girls back in 2014 [16]. I haven't found evidence of Wade supporting him and I can't remember exactly what she said. If someone has screenshots of it, I would be grateful.

Shilo used to draw NSFW art of Sally [17]. This character is canonically 8, so she usually aged her up in this kind of content. However, she posted a compilation of sketches depicting Sally and Jeff the Killer having sex in 2015, stating it was ok for them to have intercouse because they were both 13. Shilo was 22 at the time. Several sources indicate that she stopped drawing mature content due to social pressure. Nancy and Shilo follow each other on instagram to this day.

There haven't been more references to Toby on Nancy's part since then.

◇ Ok people, get the pitchforks because now I'm gonna give my opinion!

So, what can we accuse Wade of? Of being an idiot and a hypocrite when he was a teenager, of having bad companies and managing fame poorly. I don't think we can blame them for anything else and feel that a big part of the hate they receive is undeserved.

I think she was a hypocrite because she got angry with an interpretation of Toby that she had at the beginning. What's more, Toby's story uses an interpretation of Slenderman that was invented by the fandom, proxies are not canon. It's like a fanfic of a series inspired by just a couple of photos.

Still following Shilo is yikes. However, we don't really know if they're still close and I'm personally gonna give her the benefit of the doubt. Defending Steve was a bad move, but, as some people have pointed out before, he was a teen when that happened, way younger than Steve and she could have been convinced to think he was innocent. Shilo is older too.

Being that young, she wasn't prepared for facing the bad sides of fame. Ignoring stuff, going radio silent and then saying things in the heat of the moment didn't help her a bit, but it was all that occurred to her at the time. She's tried to explain things in more detail in recent years just to go back to saying as little as possible because at this point, people get angry for whatever she says.

People say they're homophobic. Their instagram account refutes it.

People say he was mean and insulted the fandom. I remember reading a couple of statuses on DA that I thought were insensitive, but that was a long time ago. People grow and he's changed his mind a lot as you can read in his instagram stories. If you say these things referring to the post where he told people Toby wasn't real, I'm sorry, but I think he had all the right to be harsh. People said Slenderman was real, it ended up in a tragedy and now the same things were being said about Toby. Can you imagine how it's to feel you're responsible for someone's death? He was trying to protect people.

People say she went after artists that portrayed Toby in a different way than hers, yet every time she's said something that ended up hurting people, she took responsibility and apologized for it. I don't believe this person could go and directly hurt someone. Remember what I said before about her issues with impersonators and people white knighting? That could be what's happening. Even now she has problems with people pretending they know her, so be careful!

People say they have abandoned the character many times. It's true they've said they didn't want to talk about Toby on four different occasions, but I don't think they did it with that intention. Why did they redesign him then? The design we all know is inevitably tied to the creepypasta community and they want to move on from it, that's why they didn't want to talk about him. Now they made a version of the character that isn't tied to that world, so we have two Tobies, one for them and one for us. I think that's cool!

Many don't like that they can't use the old version to earn money, but I want them to understand that this is a really particular situation. Usually, people making commissions of characters that aren't theirs isn't a problem when the creator is getting money on their own (unless you're Disney, Disney has no chill). This isn't Wade's case, she has never been monetary compensated for creating or drawing Toby and she has the right of choosing not to allow the commercial use of her characters. "Give for free what you were given for free" is a rule that makes sense in this case.

I don't expect anyone to stop disliking Wade, you're free to feel whatever you want, but at least I hope that this post helps people to see that all of this is more dimensional than just "kastoway is evil". At the end of the day, she's just a dude that fucked up many times and I think her experiences can help us to not commit the same errors.

◇ Here you have all the evidence

[1] Wade's age (look at the replies)

[2] First art of Toby

[3] Toby's Origin on Kastoway's DA

[4] Post where Wade complains about the difference between fanon and canon Toby

[5] Updated Toby design

[6] Wade's DA on hiatus

[7] Wade saying he doesn't want to be known just for creating Toby

[8] Wade complaining about impersonators

[9, 11] Nancy clarifying the issues with shipping and people saying Toby was real (look at section "Kastoway and his creation")

[10] Nancy saying he won't reply asks about Toby

[12] Nancy apologizing and saying ask about Toby are welcomed

[13] Nancy announcing her departure

[14] Nancy's deleted instagram stories

[15] Toby's new design

[16] About Laughing Jack's creator

[17] About Sally's Creator

[vampiremeerkat]

I kinda need some advice (if you're comfortable giving), how does one keep their cool/sanity in the hellish atmosphere that is fandom nowadays? I really wanna get back to fanart and stuff as purely a hobby (and it was a huge part of my childhood) but considering how much of a warzone it is nowadays, I dunno if I can. Got anything?

Don't think I'm the right person to ask, I've not had that many entanglements with fellow fans throughout my online career. It's easy to assume that's because my overall viewership/online presence is low, but I've had the occasional semi-viral success and always enjoyed more praise than "criticism". I'd say fandoms in general are lenient and supportive, but every and any kind of community in the world has an insufferable minority. They shout and have alot of time on their hands, making it seem like you're dealing with a crowd, but that's never the case. Even if hundreds of people jump you, billions walk the Earth; it's not even a fraction of a percent you've displeased. But here's an actual answer to your question: In short:

Choose your fandoms wisely.

Don't overstay your welcome by sticking with one.

Don't join any online communities or participate in ongoing discourse. You're only here to draw.

Train yourself to understand that nothing in life fucking matters anyway. :(

In ｌｏｎｇ: I switch my focus alot. If I attract fans of a particular fandom, but the next thing I show off is less likely to tickle their interest, most will leave again, and it's kinda protecting me from growing an unsettlingly invested fanbase. Praise and attention never motivated me to stick around with one series for long, because I know what's waiting around the corner and don't want to be known as "the <insert this one piece of media here> artist", anyway. Look at my nonsense and go away, I just want to die alone! I'm also not active at any online forums and rarely look up and comment on other people's work. Spares you alot of "who asked you"-styled responses. I might've not when I was younger, but agree with the sentiment now. Unless you come across something criminal, why intrude on someone else's fun. Grumble about it on your account if you must, but don't take it to theirs.. even though it's valid to argue that posting something online is an automatic invitation for others to critique it, especially when you don't apply any form of visibility restrictions. I don't really care to discuss ideas with fellow fans. Weird claim, since my Tumblr exists, but I started this account to post Deviantart stuff. People showed up one day and started asking questions about the fandoms I've been involved in (or haven't), but it's not my hobby to get deep about a fictional property. Without getting instigated, anyway. I think about a question's subject as I read the words, do my best to dissect the whole thing and not throw around one-sentence replies, but seldom have the answer ready in my head. The3Eds was the only forum I enjoyed myself at, and the things I talked about over there barely had anything to do with Ed, Edd n Eddy. In the end, no one will be able to offer you one foolproof strategy on this matter. There've been many artists in the past who minded their business and were slaughtered by strangers. You need to be the kind of person who doesn't take online verbal abuse to bed. That's hard to do if you're looking for validation. You could avoid large fandoms that are known to attract the overly defensive and offensive, but if you have to tiptoe through life for others, what's even the point. Know that the internet is a luxury you don't have to participate in. Log off for a week or so if you're feeling down, or alternatively, delete all comment notifications indiscriminately as you keep on doing your thing.. unless you insist on deleting negative comments, but I don't think you should. Why stop people from embarrassing themselves in public. I don't think I've ever deleted comments, unless it's copy-pasted stuff/spam, because what often happens is that the poster regrets and deletes it themselves. I suppose that has value too. Allow that shit to stay alive, so the poster may one day return to it and potentially realise they're better than that. It's easier to keep your calm when you humanize your critics, if you can. The way a person expresses themselves may be trash, but what is it they're saying, and can the reason be empathized with? Sometimes you're dealing with someone who's obviously a child. I struggle to get angry at people under the age of 20. But really -and more importantly- no one should waste their time on fighting fellow fans when it concerns an issue that's objectively not important, you have better things to do. Try to close your eyes for it, it's seldom personal, even if the attacks try to be. People can pretend, but they don't know you and never will.