#i just ended up talking about working as an online artist. stupid. really stupid to talk about yout other job

[draconicace]

just had to do an interview with prerecorded questions and i don't think i've ever done a worse job in my life

[imsobadatnicknames2]

How can you consider yourself any sort of leftist when you defend AI art bullshit? You literally simp for AI techbros and have the gall to pretend you're against big corporations?? Get fucked

I don't "defend" AI art. I think a particular old post of mine that a lot of people tend to read in bad faith must be making the rounds again lmao.

Took me a good while to reply to this because you know what? I decided to make something positive out of this and use this as an opportunity to outline what I ACTUALLY believe about AI art. If anyone seeing this decides to read it in good or bad faith... Welp, your choice I guess.

I have several criticisms of the way the proliferation of AI art generators and LLMs is making a lot of things worse. Some of these are things I have voiced in the past, some of these are things I haven't until now:

Most image and text AI generators are fine-tuned to produce nothing but the most agreeable, generically pretty content slop, pretty much immediately squandering their potential to be used as genuinely interesting artistic tools with anything to offer in terms of a unique aesthetic experience (AI video still manages to look bizarre and interesting but it's getting there too)

In the entertainment industry and a lot of other fields, AI image generation is getting incorporated into production pipelines in ways that lead to the immiseration of working artists, being used to justify either lower wages or straight-up layoffs, and this is something that needs to be fought against. That's why I unconditionally supported the SAG-AFTRA strikes last year and will unconditionally support any collective action to address AI art as a concrete labor issue

In most fields where it's being integrated, AI art is vastly inferior to human artists in any use case where you need anything other than to make a superficially pretty picture really fast. If you need to do anything like ask for revisions or minor corrections, give very specific descriptions of how objects and people are interacting with each other, or just like. generate several pictures of the same thing and have them stay consistent with each other, you NEED human artists and it's preposterous to think they can be replaced by AI.

There is a lot of art on the internet that consists of the most generically pretty, cookie-cutter anime waifu-adjacent slop that has zero artistic or emotional value to either the people seeing it or the person churning it out, and while this certainly was A Thing before the advent of AI art generators, generative AI has made it extremely easy to become the kind of person who churns it out and floods online art spaces with it.

Similarly, LLMs make it extremely easy to generate massive volumes of texts, pages, articles, listicles and what have you that are generic vapid SEO-friendly pap at best and bizzarre nonsense misinformation at worst, drowning useful information in a sea of vapid noise and rendering internet searches increasingly useless.

The way LLMs are being incorporated into customer service and similar services not only, again, encourages further immiseration of customer service workers, but it's also completely useless for most customers.

A very annoyingly vocal part the population of AI art enthusiasts, fanatics and promoters do tend to talk about it in a way that directly or indirectly demeans the merit and skill of human artists and implies that they think of anyone who sees anything worthwile in the process of creation itself rather than the end product as stupid or deluded.

So you can probably tell by now that I don't hold AI art or writing in very high regard. However (and here's the part that'll get me called an AI techbro, or get people telling me that I'm just jealous of REAL artists because I lack the drive to create art of my own, or whatever else) I do have some criticisms of the way people have been responding to it, and have voiced such criticisms in the past.

I think a lot of the opposition to AI art has critstallized around unexamined gut reactions, whipping up a moral panic, and pressure to outwardly display an acceptable level of disdain for it. And in particular I think this climate has made a lot of people very prone to either uncritically entertain and adopt regressive ideas about Intellectual Propety, OR reveal previously held regressive ideas about Intellectual Property that are now suddenly more socially acceptable to express:

(I wanna preface this section by stating that I'm a staunch intellectual property abolitionist for the same reason I'm a private property abolitionist. If you think the existence of intellectual property is a good thing, a lot of my ideas about a lot of stuff are gonna be unpalatable to you. Not much I can do about it.)

A lot of people are suddenly throwing their support behind any proposal that promises stricter copyright regulations to combat AI art, when a lot of these also have the potential to severely udnermine fair use laws and fuck over a lot of independent artist for the benefit of big companies.

It was very worrying to see a lot of fanfic authors in particular clap for the George R R Martin OpenAI lawsuit because well... a lot of them don't realize that fanfic is a hobby that's in a position that's VERY legally precarious at best, that legally speaking using someone else's characters in your fanfic is as much of a violation of copyright law as straight up stealing entire passages, and that any regulation that can be used against the latter can be extended against the former.

Similarly, a lot of artists were cheering for the lawsuit against AI art models trained to mimic the style of specific artists. Which I agree is an extremely scummy thing to do (just like a human artist making a living from ripping off someone else's work is also extremely scummy), but I don't think every scummy act necessarily needs to be punishable by law, and some of them would in fact leave people worse off if they were. All this to say: If you are an artist, and ESPECIALLY a fan artist, trust me. You DON'T wanna live in a world where there's precedent for people's artstyles to be considered intellectual property in any legally enforceable way. I know you wanna hurt AI art people but this is one avenue that's not worth it.

Especially worrying to me as an indie musician has been to see people mention the strict copyright laws of the music industry as a positive thing that they wanna emulate. "this would never happen in the music industry because they value their artists copyright" idk maybe this is a the grass is greener type of situation but I'm telling you, you DON'T wanna live in a world where copyright law in the visual arts world works the way it does in the music industry. It's not worth it.

I've seen at least one person compare AI art model training to music sampling and say "there's a reason why they cracked down on sampling" as if the death of sampling due to stricter copyright laws was a good thing and not literally one of the worst things to happen in the history of music which nearly destroyed several primarily black music genres. Of course this is anecdotal because it's just One Guy I Saw Once, but you can see what I mean about how uncritical support for copyright law as a tool against AI can lead people to adopt increasingly regressive ideas about copyright.

Similarly, I've seen at least one person go "you know what? Collages should be considered art theft too, fuck you" over an argument where someone else compared AI art to collages. Again, same point as above.

Similarly, I take issue with the way a lot of people seem EXTREMELY personally invested in proving AI art is Not Real Art. I not only find this discussion unproductive, but also similarly dangerously prone to validating very reactionary ideas about The Nature Of Art that shouldn't really be entertained. Also it's a discussion rife with intellectual dishonesty and unevenly applied definition and standards.

When a lot of people present the argument of AI art not being art because the definition of art is this and that, they try to pretend that this is the definition of art the've always operated under and believed in, even when a lot of the time it's blatantly obvious that they're constructing their definition on the spot and deliberately trying to do so in such a way that it doesn't include AI art.

They never succeed at it, btw. I've seen several dozen different "AI art isn't art because art is [definition]". I've seen exactly zero of those where trying to seriously apply that definition in any context outside of trying to prove AI art isn't art doesn't end up in it accidentally excluding one or more non-AI artforms, usually reflecting the author's blindspots with regard to the different forms of artistic expression.

(However, this is moot because, again, these are rarely definitions that these people actually believe in or adhere to outside of trying to win "Is AI art real art?" discussions.)

Especially worrying when the definition they construct is built around stuff like Effort or Skill or Dedication or The Divine Human Spirit. You would not be happy about the kinds of art that have traditionally been excluded from Real Art using similar definitions.

Seriously when everyone was celebrating that the Catholic Church came out to say AI art isn't real art and sharing it as if it was validating and not Extremely Worrying that the arguments they'd been using against AI art sounded nearly identical to things TradCaths believe I was like. Well alright :T You can make all the "I never thought I'd die fighting side by side with a catholic" legolas and gimli memes you want, but it won't change the fact that the argument being made by the catholic church was a profoundly conservative one and nearly identical to arguments used to dismiss the artistic merit of certain forms of "degenerate" art and everyone was just uncritically sharing it, completely unconcerned with what kind of worldview they were lending validity to by sharing it.

Remember when the discourse about the Gay Sex cats pic was going on? One of the things I remember the most from that time was when someone went "Tell me a definition of art that excludes this picture without also excluding Fountain by Duchamp" and how just. Literally no one was able to do it. A LOT of people tried to argue some variation of "Well, Fountain is art and this image isn't because what turns fountain into art is Intent. Duchamp's choice to show a urinal at an art gallery as if it was art confers it an element of artistic intent that this image lacks" when like. Didn't by that same logic OP's choice to post the image on tumblr as if it was art also confer it artistic intent in the same way? Didn't that argument actually kinda end up accidentally validating the artistic status of every piece of AI art ever posted on social media? That moment it clicked for me that a lot of these definitions require applying certain concepts extremely selectively in order to make sense for the people using them.

A lot of people also try to argue it isn't Real Art based on the fact that most AI art is vapid but like. If being vapid definitionally excludes something from being art you're going to have to exclude a whooole lot of stuff along with it. AI art is vapid. A lot of art is too, I don't think this argument works either.

Like, look, I'm not really invested in trying to argue in favor of The Artistic Merits of AI art but I also find it extremely hard to ignore how trying to categorically define AI art as Not Real Art not only is unproductive but also requires either a) applying certain parts of your definition of art extremely selectively, b) constructing a definition of art so convoluted and full of weird caveats as to be functionally useless, or c) validating extremely reactionary conservative ideas about what Real Art is.

Some stray thoughts that don't fit any of the above sections.

I've occassionally seen people respond to AI art being used for shitposts like "A lot of people have affordable commissions, you could have paid someone like $30 to draw this for you instead of using the plagiarism algorithm and exploiting the work of real artists" and sorry but if you consider paying an artist a rate that amounts to like $5 for several hours of work a LESS exploitative alternative I think you've got something fucked up going on with your priorities.

Also it's kinda funny when people comment on the aforementioned shitposts with some variation of "see, the usage of AI art robs it of all humor because the thing that makes shitposts funny is when you consider the fact that someone would spend so much time and effort in something so stupid" because like. Yeah that is part of the humor SOMETIMES but also people share and laugh at low effort shitposts all the time. Again you're constructing a definition that you don't actually believe in anywhere outside of this type of conversations. Just say you don't like that it's AI art because you think it's morally wrong and stop being disingenuous.

So yeah, this is pretty much everything I believe about the topic.

I don't "defend" AI art, but my opposition to it is firmly rooted in my principles, and that means I refuse to uncritically accept any anti-AI art argument that goes against those same principles.

If you think not accepting and parroting every Anti-AI art argument I encounter because some of them are ideologically rooted in things I disagree with makes me indistinguishable from "AI techbros" you're working under a fucked up dichotomy.

[hg-aneh]

Yo, I don't know if you know this but your work is being posted on Pinterest

I sort of knew but never really cared about it until now-?

-lots of angry feed up whining below... and a bit of a breakdown-

Just a few hours ago I saw the comments on some of them and holy shit tiktok children are some of the most braindead individuals i have ever seen

I'm fine with reposts, and if I wasn't, I know I wouldn't be able to stop them

What's pissing me off rn is that my stuff is getting attention from *that* crowd, the booger eating snot nosed mocosos de mierda who are so privileged their main problems are "what's skrimblo skromblo doing now? omg is it problematic??? omg theyre like so evil 💀💀"

I- they're still fucking going with the Crowriel thing- How cool, how fun, totally not making me want to disappear again bc of all the trauma from that particular mess, nope, not at all

And the angel crowley x demon crowley thing- i swear to fucking god i- they're so dumb- they're so stupid- how is it incest you- they're the same person🙉🙉🙉🙉🙉🙉🙉🙉

I even saw some little shit saying "omg i used to like that artist until i found out they draw nsfw" ... WHAT IS HAPPENIGNJDNGKDBG??????¿?¿¿????¿

I swear I'm going insane, I wish I could take my shit away from those people, they're so-??????

Like I'm legit about to enter another joker era, I can't believe this is what fandom spaces are now, what is wrong with people

Sorry I'm using this as a vent post or whatever but honestly I'm tired of being subservient when it comes to these fucking people, at one point a bitch has gotta explode

"Why do you care so much about what ppl say abt you online"

Because I have Seen what happens when you shut up about it. You either address it indirectly or become tiktoklovr103892's punching bag, there's no in between. Each second of silence is an admission of guilt for these motherfuckers

And I know that at the end of the day it doesn't matter but bro just allow me to be emotional over having an online space where I can have fun and take a break from life, be riddled with people who I've seen talking like they're praying for my downfall

Seriously what the fuck

What. the fuck.

.

Now if you'll excuse me

[dandylovesturtles]

Top Ten Posts of 2023

I decided, why not? ^^

I'm limiting this to fics/analysis/headcanon/etc posts I made during the year and skipping over anything that isn't my actual creative work. That said, if you're curious, my actual top post was this funky screenshot from episode 2.

10. Everyone's just fine with Donnie modding the moon buggy? (362 notes)

It occurred to me that despite being MASSIVE nerds for the Jupiter Jim franchise, the bros seemed awfully chill with Donnie taking an actual on-set moon buggy and modding the hell out of it.

A few people argued with me in the notes that the Turtle Tank is so cool no one could possibly be mad about it and I do think that's fair. The Turtle Tank is easily my favorite thing Donnie made in the show.

9. Splinter and Leo talk post movie (443 notes)

And then his dad walks in and says, “I would like to talk to Blue, please. Alone.” And suddenly Leo doesn’t feel so good anymore.

This is the most recent tumblr fic I've done (I think lol), so seeing it make it this high felt pretty good. I love Splinter and his boys... they make me emotional.

8. A headcanon about the Disaster Twins (445 notes)

I have a headcanon that the twins are lowkey always trying to get each other to laugh.

This is still true.

7. A showcase of Donnie's injuries in End Game (462 notes)

So everyone talks about Donnie getting his shell shredded by the Shredder in Many Unhappy Returns but I feel like it’s underappreciated that that happened to him coming off of getting his ass beat in End Game like

One of the first posts I made when I made this blog haha. Poor Donnie |'D

6. Donnie records everything (617 notes)

broke: Donnie listening to what happened in the prison dimension woke: Donnie showing Raph Leo’s big damn hero speech since he wasn’t there the first time

The main reason why this has so many notes is because @roseverdict wrote a great fic down in the notes that you should all go read.

5. Leo asks Donnie a favor (829 notes)

“You might as well tell me what you need,” he says, turning to his computer and pulling up his list. “I’ll assess it and prioritize.” “No, no, that’s okay. It’s nothing,” Leo insists. “Nardo.” Donnie levels his best stare at him. “What is it?”

I love writing the Disaster Twins being soft and you guys love it when I write it too.

4. Present Donnie and Future Donnie have a little disagreement (CAS AU fic) (1,242 notes)

“What was I supposed to do, tie him to a chair?” “Yes!?” says Mini-him like he’s stupid, which warrants a scoff.

Shoutout to @skcirthinq who doodled a comic version of their conversation.

3. Casey Jr. and Uncle Tello troll Present Donnie (CAS AU fic) (1,701 notes)

Casey Jr, says Uncle Tello’s voice. Uncle Tello? Do you want to see something really funny?

This is my actual fic with the most notes! I'm glad you all enjoyed this silly little take on what was actually an incredibly intense moment in Cass's original comic.

2. Mikey contacts the Hamato ancestors (2,054 notes)

future Mikey: *trying to contact the spirits of the Hamato for advice and guidance in the apocalypse* Donnie’s spirit: Hello, you are now communing with Donatello.

I can't believe you guys gave over 2K notes to the stupidest joke I've ever made. Shoutout to @nonymous06 for this artist's rendition.

and finally, drum roll please.....

My top post of 2023:

1. A very silly idea for a separated AU (4,283 notes)

non-angsty ROTTMNT separated AU where the boys meet online and bond over their shared love of Jupiter Jim and skateboarding and Lou Jitsu. Then one day they agree to meet irl for the first time at a con and decide to dress as turtle aliens.

This post spawned an adorable fanart by @thatsmutbean , this hilarious fanart by @onionninjasstuff , and an entire fanfic called new phone who dis by @rbtlvr

This has been an incredible year! My love for ROTTMNT has not diminished in the slightest and I still have lots of ideas, so I hope you guys stick with me for 2024. Thanks again! Happy New Year!!

[northern-passage]

honestly same...I also only stick to reading the same ifs I've been reading since like 2 years ago + as a disabled lgbt person this community has gotten to toxic to interact wth tbh

hmmm putting this under a read more but here's some ramblings about my personal experience as well as some advice if anyone wants it

before i started writing tnp, when i was just a reader, it was very easy to curate my space and avoid a lot of the nastier people (especially back when the forums were the main space for people to talk about IF. i didn't go on the forums at all) and i was very much outside of the fandom and followed only like one artist whose recommendations i started off with before finding more stuff on my own.

once i became an author though it is impossible to avoid certain groups of people and it's really hard to hold on to that comfortable space. over the last like 3 years now my audience has definitely changed and dwindled a lot due to my.... Big personality but before that i had to endure a lot of harassment, people stalking me, people harassing my friends just for being my friend, almost constant transphobia and racism, and even now i still have people that seem to just camp in my inbox waiting for any opportunity to try and hurt me/get a reaction out of me.

i've been pretty open about all of this stuff happening too which most people also don't like, though that seems to be pretty standard across any fandom when you try to talk about how bad they are. i'm never really surprised when other authors delete without any warning or they just slowly stop posting and never come back. it's definitely something i've wanted to do more than once and still think about sometimes. even now after finally seeming to find my "niche" and a more understanding audience, it's really hard and i struggle with finding inspiration and motivation because of how people have treated me.

unfortunately i think it's always been this way, it's the nature of sharing work online and especially with IF feeling so "collaborative" people really feel entitled to it. and i also see readers facing this same kind of harassment, too, so it's definitely not just an author problem.

my advice is to just block and ignore people as best you can and just stay in your own little bubble with your friends or at least people that you trust. if you're an author going through any of the things i mentioned then just know there are a lot of other authors that have had to go through it, too, and that you should also just block and ignore to the best of your ability. just because you're an author doesn't mean you have to tolerate it. i used to respond to a lot of messages which is why i feel that a lot of my harassment lasted for so long, because they thought it was "funny" to upset me, but the more you respond and give them attention the more they'll keep doing it. so just block anons and move on (i know i make it sound so simple. trust me i used to be really bad about it, now i try to take at least a day or two before responding and usually by that time i realize how stupid it is and i just delete it without any fanfare)

at the end of the day though it's your decision, and your well-being comes first before anything else. i say this to both authors and readers, there's no reason to force yourself to stay in a place that makes you uncomfortable or is triggering. sometimes it's better to just let go and move on, though i know that's easier said than done. i'm a prime example as someone who still logs into tumblr daily despite trying really hard not to do that.

and i'm not saying to give up on your work, but rather that writing privately is always an option, and it's what i've been doing now with my other projects ever since i took siren's call down. i know the desire for outside validation can be overwhelming but i think it's important to remember that you should be writing this for yourself first and that there's no harm in keeping your work private until you're ready. tumblr is fun but there's also a lot of problems that can be difficult to deal with while you're also trying to keep motivation and creativity up to write your story, and it can be really discouraging.

like i said, your first priority should be yourself, and if you have to step back away from tumblr/fandom then you should & you shouldn't feel guilty about it.

all of that to say that there are nice people out there, too, i've made really good friends here and i really value their friendship and their understanding, especially when i was going through the worst of it. and there are a lot of readers who have been very kind to me and that have sent me very nice messages and drawn lovely art over the years and i always try to focus on that over everything else.

it can be really easy to get overwhelmed by all the negativity and hostility which is why it's so important to find your people and be supportive of each other.

[rbvcdeluxe]

pinned post bc yeag

So, my name is Robert Bartolomeo but I have like, some nicknames ofc, I ain't tellin' 'em here rn. I go by he/him, I'm Mexican, transgender and I'm autistic with ADHD n OCD (send help). This is mainly a Starkid blog, some TCB and with the occasional mention of some other interests which are tbh quite some

I'd like to mention that if at some point I seem rude or mean, I promise it's not really likely (unless I state it myself or whatever). I just don't have the best wording or even vocabulary. I'm only a bitch irl but I'm more chill online I swear

If anyone wants to talk with me, feel absolutely free to do it. I would like to add that as normal as my typing seems when I post, I actually have terrible spelling n ton of typos when textin directly through DM or textin in general, even tho I still kinda try to be lowkey understandable but doing that kinda makes my typing slow so it is annoying but look im trying okaayyyyy.

Feel free to send asks about anything, either if it's jus for interaction or questions, I'm totally fine w it n I love talkin so yeah. Even if we are not mutuals, you can totally send asks. asks open at any time.

Anyone can ask for discord by DMing me btw

(more under the cut)

I'd call myself not so social (almost at all) but I do really, really appreciate when people wanna talk to me since socializing is a huge problem for me, so yup, everyone is welcome to interact with me.

Some of my interests are: Splatoon, The Good Place, Musical comedians (As in musical stand up and some comedy artists), some other musicals like Beetlejuice, Heathers, Jesus Christ Superstar and others. I'm also DEEPLY obsessed with Van Gogh, his paintings, his history and even other artists he was connected to like Paul Gauguin (who I fuckin' hate but I like learnin' 'bout him)

Going more deeply with my interest on musical comedians (since it's actually a pretty big term lmao), most of my interest goes to stand up musical comedians, those who are still on stage and off, like Bo Burnham, Tim Minchin, Tom Lehrer, Garfunkel and Oates, etc. But most of my interest goes to Bo Burnham and Tim Minchin, I can't physically be normal about them at all. I'm also in love with other works besides comedy some of them make or have been involved in, like movies and other projects. I LOVE Eighth Grade, Upright, Zach Stone Is Gonna Be Famous, and many others.

Also i think it would b silly to mention that my username are just the initials of my full name + deluxe. I just like the word deluxe so I put it there tbh (and it's also a reference to a song but shhhh you saw nothing)

Imma write some silly fun facts about me n shit now.

Back to Starkid: My two ever fuckin' favorite starkid musicals will always be Black Friday and TTO. I will defend those fuckers until the day I die ALONG with Cinderella's Castle. I cannot be normal about any of these shows. No one will ever fuckin understand BF as much as I do

I also love writing little simple analysis of some characters and even scenes I love, even if most of them I do not end up posting bc I either didn't like how I phrased it or I just think it could be way better (or maybe it's just too stupid). Something I find fun to overanalyze are the most unimportant shit to the lore in general, I like to think about the specifics of even one singular character, even if it doesn't change much about the lore of Hatchetfield as in general. I love every single little detail there is. (and by little I mean LITTLE. like, hey, did you know that during Feast Or Famine, Tom does the ‘Squee squee’ motion like this emoji🤌?? THAT KIND OF LITTLE DETAIL I MEAN.)

Yeah so like. As I mentioned this is a SK blog but I also like to fuckin complain a lot. about everything. Im a damn complaining bitch and there is absolutely nothing I can do about it. Either if it's fandom related or just every day shit, I will always fuckin complain.

More stupid shit. For some fucking reason (many (almost my whole life)) I fuckin relate to Barry fucking Swift (Barry is literally. like one of my few nicknames. It's insane) n. yeag. I'm not even surprised.

Oh and just thought I'll mention. I know im a fuckin asshole n a jerk I dont need fuckin reminders about it. thank yewwww C:

[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

[g-oblincat]

The other manga I've been keeping up with that recently just ended! And I'm going to talk about it!

Ayaka-chan wa Hiroko-senpai ni Koishiteru (Ayaka is in Love with Hiroko!) by Sal Jiang

A lesbian office drama written by a Twitter artist I really like! Ayaka has a crush on her senior at work, Hiroko, and constantly tries to make Hiroko notice her. Hiroko is a lesbian who’s closeted at work and trying her hardest not to fall for Ayaka, who she thinks is an oblivious straight girl. The appeal is the comedy of watching two women made stupid by love freak out over each other, underlined by queer angst.

Things I like about it:

Charming characters! The main couple is SO easy to fall in love with and root for- they are so earnest and funny and have great chemistry. It also doesn’t hurt that they’re drawn REALLY well with fun, expressive faces and cute designs.

Themes of queerness as identity and community! More in the spoiler section, but my favorite scenes in this story take place in in a gay bar with a character’s WLW friendgroup as they talk about being gay. The community is my favorite part of being queer and I never see it reflected in manga, and I love how much fun and love is put into the scenes with the friendgroup.

You can read the official English comic online here! I think this is the most affordable I’ve ever seen a manga actually, so it’s definitely worth a buy! I will admit I am using the Dynasty Scans pages in the spoiler section of this post, since that’s the version I read before finding out about the official English version.

Expanding on my two points above in the spoilers section!

Time for the section where I play show and tell

That’s the premise!

Great characters and chemistry

Ayaka is SO cute. I love pretty femme girls who are kind of bratty, and she’s portrayed in a way where you know the author’s having so much fun with her.

Some random out of order/context Ayaka faces from the earlier chapters! I forgot how cute and sweet she comes off in the earlier chapters, she’s a total goblin later lol

Hiroko is also such a fun character! I love the contrast between a really serious, straight laced, determined-to-not-fall-in-love person at work to uhhhhh womanizer at night lol.

Speaking of fun, a character interaction trope I’ll never get tired of are “characters who comedically overreact when they’re in love with someone” and that fits this couple to a T!

What a cute sequence….

Both characters’ POVs from the same chapter. Hiroko focusing on how hot Ayaka is, and Ayaka imagining wedding bells when Hiroko looks at her LOL.

I could keep showing screenshots of these two until I basically go through the entire comic lol.

But even outside the main two, I really like the side characters as well! A standout is Risa - Ayaka’s colleague who’s also a baby gay and has a crush on her. I’m unusual in that I usually like love triangles, but I do think this one is written really well! She’s sympathetic, her doomed longing for Ayaka is delicious and relatable. (Spoilers) I love how her selfishness and selflessness is balanced- her crush and competition with Hiroko makes her sabotage Ayaka’s crush in small ways in the beginning, but she fundamentally cares for her friend and roots for them in the end. Also, (BIG SPOILERS) she and Ayaka end up dating and breaking up but still remain friends, which is another favorite trope of mine. (HUGE SPOILERS) I love this page, any manga that includes a scene like this is top tier for me…. She feels realistic and her story is really sweet!

(Left) Baby gays smashing braincells against each other and (Right) Risa’s eyes wander….

Queer community and identity

This section has more spoilers than the last one!! If you haven’t read this comic but plan on it, I recommend you not read this part!!

In my last post, I said that Yuri as a genre doesn’t need to have anything about queerness as an identity to be good, but then I realized that most of my favorites did have a focus on identity…. Yeah IDK what to say LOL. But the identity aspect is a big plot point/theme of this story, and it’s written SUPER well.

First of all- Hiroko’s backstory centers on homophobia and her being super closeted at her workplace. I’m iffy on homophobia stories (just cause I’ve read a lot of them and they tend to hit on the same points), but the homophobia theme leads to one of my fav scenes:

Context: Risa knows Hiroko is closeted and rants about it to the bartender at a lesbian bar who knows Hiroko.

I love this focus on how queer people interact with the straight world, and the generational divide between older and younger queers. I can only speak from a US perspective, but progress around LGBTQ acceptance has come so far and so fast the past few years that if I was born a few years earlier or a few years later, I’d have a radically different life experience. It’s something I think about a lot when reading memoirs and articles by older queer people, and contrasting that with my life and the observed lives of people younger than me online. This theme is explored well in this story- the cultural tensions between Hiroko and Ayaka and Risa, how straight people may react more positively to queer people now but it’s still not perfect, and how Hiroko has changed her workplace for the better.

Also speaking of the lesbian bar- I love the girls at the bar lol. Right after the scene with Risa, a gaggle of lesbians come in and comfort her and it’s SOOOO heartwarming and cute. I love how this friendgroup is written- supportive, but also will call you out.

It’s so fun to read these guys gossip, give each other relationship advice, bicker with each other, and be horny at women together.

Hiroko’s relationship with the girls is more bickering, but Risa and Ayaka end up going to them for advice a lot which is so sweet and the elder/baby queer relationship I need (not portrayed because I can’t find a screenshot that doesn’t reveal a big plot twist)

Anyway…that’s it…. If you’ve read this comic please talk to me about it…if you haven’t please read it. Thank you.

[renzaslasher]

The online art community these days is fucking poison.

I said what I said. It's not a meritocracy, it's a bloated, ugly geratocracy where mean girls in ivory towers throw rocks down at the literal children trying to climb up to their level, adders whisper sweet nothings in your ear while eating you alive in private, and snake oil salesmen shill the defiled, stitched together corpses of peoples' life work. It's so goddamn disgusting that people find enjoyment spitting on the feelings of tweens who just want to be as loved and adored as them. It's almost like they're LEARNING, FROM YOU. You should feel fucking honored that someone loved you enough to be inspired by you. They're not stupid enough to be copying you forever. If they are, then it's a problem, but it shouldn't need to be said that you can't spit on someone's progress and feelings just because you're butthurt that someone is trying to be as good as you.

And yes, that's a real bit of drama. From a community so niche that I doubt anyone reading knows it, but I genuinely looked up to this artist for so long, and it pisses me off that someone so well respected could actively choose to grind their heels on someone's progress like that. How fucking pathetic.

I know people are gonna be mad at me for saying this, but is it really that bad if we get taken over by AI? Because I've been thinking about it. Is it really gonna be that bad if it means all the petty slapfights, the bitching, the moaning about who stole what from who, the mudslinging, the sheer volume of bullshit that breached containment from the art commentary community, if that all just ends? If we're all just our own version of Victor Frankenstein, robbing graves to make vile, cobbled together simulacrums of what we were, endlessly learning from and reproducing with each other until the end of time? Sure, it'll be the end of real creativity as we know it, and it's not gonna root out the endless waves of wolves in sheeps' clothing that constantly 'just slip and fall! Whoops!' into minors' DMs, but God, it'll make my Youtube and Pinterest feeds a lot cleaner.

I fucking hate that we live in a world where good, honest artists online are the outliers who get pushed to the side in favour of sellouts, charlatans and monsters, and the only way to succeed is to pray to whatever machinated algorithmic madgod is running your platform of choice. That you just have to take being talked down to by someone you loved and respected because you expressed your feelings in a way too similar to theirs. That everyone expects you to take the fucking moral high ground because everyone on the internet has to be a goddamn saint all the time, lest they be ground into dust by the people who gave them power in the first place.

And no, I'm not going to 'just leave', because I'm human, and I'm a fucking hypocrite.

[mostspecialgirl]

i dont think i can do “artist spaces” anymore because i’m really stupid. - ramble post with no point or central focus aside from making myself feel less weird

like…. i’m stupid. and i like it! But every artist i meet is like some kind of super genius and irs kind of nuts, everyone’s got such vision and intelligence and honed skill and all these interesting things about their lives and practice away from the arts and i’m some kind of inert orb who doesn't have much soul in her work aside from "isnt this cool like a animes" or "this is how im feeling". at least when it comes to Drawinf a Pitures.

i can deal with spaces where everyone’s just hanging out and Some People Happen to be Artists but spaces primarily composed of people steeped in the arts actually remind me that i'm a socially inept cavewoman who barely knows how to use the microwave. sufficiently talented artists ('sufficient' referring to people who have labelled themself an artist and have been online for more than 2 years) who i end up talking to online are 80% of the time some kind of Art Student Med Student Math Prodigy or Mentally Ill Genius Socially Inept Outsider Artist with insane Honed Unique Skill and when you apply that 80% to a whole lump of people in a GC or a Discord Server where the other 20% don't really talk there it gets real mentally exhausting as someone generally quite unimpressive and classically unskilled.

i dunno. I just kind of find it interesting that people with such talent, skill, wit, and (as ive repeated endlessly) intelligence are always drawn to the arts. a lot of my friends ive made who are very smart people ive learned 3 years into the friendship they used to do painting studies and are some kind of closet picasso while ive been showing them my meager collection of shale and sediment. is the pursuit of the artistic a mark of something deeper? what must one’s character lack to not seek creative self expression? what separates a creator from a consumer, and the blind from the perceptive? is creating art for the simple purpose of “cool and fun” shallow? does that answer change with ones talent? what is shallow art? is there truly such a thing?

cough

anyway. i’m just kind of a dumb baby, and it makes me sad that i never really feel like i can talk about art with most people because i don’t know anything. i’m not looking for construction or anything, i just want to be able to say “isn’t making something fun” without being reminded of my own inadequacies. i feel like art shouldn’t have to be this “smart” thing, and it isn’t, but art itself draws in the smart, and so like in many other spaces i feel a bit outcasted. obviously the solution here is to talk to MINORS from TIKTOK (gets cancelled)

but i really dunno. i feel stupid a lot these days and i feel like there aren’t any spaces that fit me, even when on paper these should be the spaces i should be in. even off the paper, anywhere i go i can’t help but feel like a bit of a bump on a log. like an erroneously flipped bit. i’m the stray ray from the sun beamed into the nintendo 64. that’s how i feel among other people, no matter who i’m with. it’s strange, because i really do like myself. i’ve passed a lot of the self deprecation and self doubt that used to chain me, and is it strange to say i believed casting those aside would help me find a bit more belonging among other people?

it hasn’t! life’s the same! maybe worse? i’m not self actualized or anything, but i think i’ve really grown as a person, so it’s sort of sucky that i fit better in place as a problem child. well i suppose as the Old Ones spoke, every group needs The Rick Friend. meeting people is hard. wanting to stay among people i’ve met is even harder. i like to blame a lot of it on the Modern Internet and the sheer amount of how many people have invaded my once cozy corners. with The Net these days being less of a space for Niche Freaks and instead being Grandma And Your Little Cousin Just Saw You Post Your Wiener On Instagram i’d think it’s only natural i’m running into less likeminded people. but i dunno. i feel like some of it’s my fault. i’m a weird little giblet of a girl, aren’t i? and man do i EVER hate people. I’m a big hater.

everybody i meet these days just makes me drool because everyone’s some kind of Valorant Edater or Reddit Object Show Minor or The Hypersexual or Someone I’m Too Intimidated By or Someone Who Does Not Want To Be Talking To Me. where’s Literally Anything Else. Everyone i meet these days fits into those categories. Give me anything else. What is wrong with my Spaces

i really don’t know how people make friends online these days. i’m always posting these days about Haha I Need Friends and Haha I Need A Wife that falls endlessly into the empty infinite void (much like now) for a reason. no matter where i seem to go, i walk dragging my feet, half-lidded and unengaged with a soft scowl on my face. i’ll figure it out, right? i’ll certainly make new friends, right? because i have to, right?

i dont wanna go to work tomorrow dude

[leverage-ot3]

I was tagged by my buddy and old siren (freeform) mutual @imaginejolls for this ask game!

Star Sign(s): Sagittarius sun, Aquarius moon, Capricorn rising

Favorite Holidays: halloween :3

Last Meal: my mom's cajun beef stew with rice pilaf and a roll

Current Favorite Musician: I've been listening to a lot of noah kahan recently (vermont represent), but I also adore hozier, gracie abrams, lizzie mcalpine, phoebe bridgers, etc. I've never been the same since I was told my taste in music was yallternative. I also love lil nas x and found a new musician through tiktok that goes by brye that is really good

Last Music Listened To: the playlist I listen to the most, especially for sleep: immaculate fall vibes (technically the name of the playlist is just a bunch of the artists featured in it but the description is immaculate fall vibes). my most recent song was save me by noah kahan

Last Movie Watched: this is so embarrasing but I watched the meg with my dad yesterday lmao. I have a weakness for stupid monster movies (we used to watch the shittiest syfy movies together when I was in hs. the shittier the better). I thought he'd like it because jason statham but he was meh about it

Last TV Show Watched: last one I was invested in was the new episode of percy jackson, but I did watch a little bit of that polish show high water on netflix the other day which seemed interesting

Last Book/Fic Finished: god I actually haven't been reading fic for a hot minute which is really surprising. probably my reread of of the northmost winds and skies by @jjackfrost. wasn't in the crossover fandom until earlier this year but actually adore that pairing. this is now my comfort longfic (+400k). it's so good, I read it and I wasn't even in the fandom at the time and it was amazing!!! all the characters are written so well, the voices and pov are great, the worldbuilding and storyling is amazing! I've gushed in the comments before but ugh I love it so so much. inject this into my mf veins

Last Book/Fic Abandoned: I don't really abandon fics, I just wait for them to get updated again. as for books, I really tried to get into loveless by alice oseman because aroace rep but I couldn't really get into it :/

Currently Reading: nothing at the moment (not going to list all the fics I'm waiting for updates for because I can't remember them all and the ones I can remember would take up like multiple pages lol)

Last Thing Researched for Art/Writing/Hyperfixation: ooo this is hard. technically speaking I've been hyperfixated on playing animal crossing so the most recent thing I looked up for that was what treasure islands were lmao

Favorite Online Fandom Memory: oooo I'm not sure actually? I really love having mutuals even if we don't talk. I also really enjoy when people engage with my posts and appreciate my tags and aus. I like sharing my thoughts and ideas with you guys and it's so heartwarming and validating when y'all enjoy it right back

Favorite Old Fandom You Wish Would Drag You Back In/Have A Resurgence: I agree with jolly, I miss siren dearly. can they just do a leverage in like five years and retcon the last season? thanks

Favorite Thing You Enjoy That Never Had an Active or Big "Fandom" but You Wish It Did: probably some of the kdramas I've watched. I adored the guest on netflix but there's no fandom. I really REALLY wanted some fix-it fics for the ending of my name but there weren't any because the fandom was too small :(

Tempting Project You're Trying to Rein In/Don't Have Time For: so many things that I jump between (the adhd of it all lmao). I really would like to make a leverage ot3: are they queer video essay and I have some stuff typed up BUT I work in the healthcare field and I'm really hesitant of putting myself on video because when you work in this field it can be weird if clients or employers find your channel. so that's technically on hold for privacy reasons rn. I also really want to learn how to sew and make clothes and my roommate has even offered to help (they used to do competitive cosplay) but I'm just very unmotivated. I want to get back into witchy things but don't have the mental energy to invest in that other than appreciating my stones

tagging 10 moots but anyone can play!!!: @leverageclips @all-things-breathing @digitaldiscipline @peachyteabuck @vampirewalterskinner @buzzmcnab @sidras-tak @my-beloved-lakes @kajaono @suddenrundown

[shadowmaat]

It's only going to get worse, folks.

Mullenweg says that users might start with just a Tumblr blog but then, over time, want to expand into something larger — an e-commerce store, a more customizable site, a newsletter or a membership site — and Automattic could direct users to other products it offers that allow those possibilities, like WordPress.com or WooCommerce, and others. “I’m excited about that on-ramp as well as to bring a younger demographic and young people into WordPress,” Mullenweg noted.

It was never about "saving" tumblr, it was about driving more traffic to Automattic.

And yeah, that "younger demographic" thing comes up a couple of times. It's part of the base code of the internet: the "younger demographic" is the only one that matters. Which is stupid, since your "younger demographic" becomes your "older demographic" over time. AKA your long-time userbase. Why the hell would you want to alienate the people who've been with you forever in order to chase the youngers? "They have more disposable income" is a lie that needs to finally die.

Mullenweg is also severely disconnected from reality when it comes to "AI."

“For Tumblr…I think it can make our developers a lot more productive…the code could be checked by AI or tested by AI or something like that. So that’ll allow us to do a lot more with the same or fewer developers, which is really exciting. So maybe our pace of development can increase,” he said. Plus, AI can be a help in moderation, flagging things before they’re even reported by Tumblr users. In addition, AI and machine learning could make the Tumblr feed better and more personalized to end users. “You can tweak it and it can really learn the things you want to see and the friends you want to follow,” he said. The exec was also generally bullish on generative AI as a tool for artists, which may benefit the community that uses Tumblr, but didn’t note that Tumblr itself would build gen AI tools.

I feel like Staff is just as under threat as the rest of us with this. He's gonna try and save money by potentially cutting staff and relying on "AI" to handle coding checks and moderation. Yeah, because robomodding has worked so well in the past. /sarcasm

He also seems to have missed how much "AI" is loathed by artists. Like, yes, it can and has been used as a tool to help artists create their own unique works, but it's far, FAR more commonly used as a way to steal the work of others, tweak it, and regurgitate it as something "new" with no actual artistic changes made by the non-artist end user.

This is the future of tumblr. No wonder our feedback goes unanswered. It also seems I was right in guessing that being a long-time user is considered a bad thing: we're "old" and the only ones that matter are the "young."

Huh. I wonder if any of that plays into the under-20s believing the over-20s don't belong here.

ANYWAY! Now's a good time to mention that Pillowfort isn't owned by corporate sponsors and works well as a blogging platform. Dreamwidth is also out there, but reminds me more of Livejournal than tumblr in its mechanics.

Damn. I knew tumblr was taking a downward trend but I didn't realize we were already circling the drain.

[ponytailzuko]

were you shit at art before you became good

you had to learn how to do things, one after the other, right? like colors and lighting and line art and textures and perspective and all that. you had to learn one and then the other and then the other and then the other … (or maybe some things went kind of hand in hand but yknow)

these are stupid questions (if there is such a thing of course, lmao,) but i would be very happy if you could indulge me haha, because looking at your art is so overwhelming when you‘re thinking about learning it yourself ahfjaka (i love looking at your art it‘s a really nice experience, it‘s just intimidating too and a lil ah.. you know ahdjsk, only when i think about like. it looks a little unattainable or like it‘ll take 20 years if i‘ll ever be able to and that‘s not really — like i know better than to indulge these thoughts sort of so nowww i feel silly about this ask adfhkjfs.

anyway.

nice art, still, wowwwww so so beautiful)

(it’s a process and it’s about the fun of that process too but i have such a vivid imagination that i really really want to get really GOOD so that i can make it actually visible, and i know it can and probs will take some time and that’s alright so this ask is a little silly. i‘m asking it anyway though ahdjsjsjwk)

hi!!! im not bothered by the ask and its not silly!

i was, in fact, shit at art when i first started out. the reason i even started to draw and do it as a hobby is because i was very dogshit at it. (if there is such thing anyways)

i think i was around 11 or so? that age where elementary school is ending and middle school is beginning and everyone's getting kind of mean lmao. one girl asked me to draw with her and she was REALLY GOOD at it! but i hadn't thought much about art at all and only really did it for fun. so i was really just doodling to my hearts content until she ah. told me that the panda i was drawing was. Really Really Bad. like point at it and laugh kind of bad. like 'not even being able to tell what it is everyone come see this' kind of bad.

anyways obviously i was not very happy. i had not really thought of art as something i wanted to do, nor a hobby that i wanted to indulge in. just something some people are good at it and some people arent. but this girl told me my art was shit, and i was so mad that i didnt talk to her for a month and then for that entire month i did nothing but watch people draw online. speedpaints at first. then i got on iscribble (collaborative whiteboard website at the time) and just watched people do it. and i asked them, how did they start? how do you know what to do? and a lot of people gave me different advice - start with shapes, oh finish the lineart first, color like this - and generally it was very overwhelming and a lot of the advice went over my head. a lot of artists advice feels incomprehensible when starting out, and some of it really stays that way bc there is some art advice i STILL do not understand at all (but it works for some people so power to them), and there is some that is more understandable when getting into the groove.

but anyways while talking to people i realized i kinda really liked the coloring aspect of art. really really liked it. id ask people if they finished their lineart, could i try and color it in the layer below just to try and improve? and SO MANY PEOPLE indulged me. and were incredibly nice. and i guess thats what made me enjoy art even though i knew that in a lot of aspects my art wasn't skilled. because people were really nice ANYWAYS and said i should keep going! so i found something i liked to do in art beyond spiteful beginnings, and i just kept it up - i learned coloring first, and i tried to learn everything else so i could color it lmao. i only did lineart and sketching and anatomy because i wanted to draw my own stuff to color. so you can totally focus on one thing at a time! thats what i did :)

i hope that story helps in any way!!! im not sure if it totally answers your question but i guess i wanted to share that growing in art is a process and you arent alone :) ty so much im glad you like my art and if you ever wanna share your own im always open!!! :D

[peppertaemint]

I have a big Ask about becoming drained by the kpop life (Anon added a lol, btw). I thought I would put excerpts here and respond. The Anon is aiming this at all fandoms.

there seems to be this constant wave of complaints, entitlement and overreacting to every damn thing. Either it's a conspiracy and the company their fave group works at is trying to sabotage their faves or complaining that the company is over working their faves not taking into consideration what that artist is capable of being able to handle or discussions they may have had with their agency, overreacting that their fave isn't being treated equally, counting how many lines their fave gets, how much camera time, if their fave is sick or hurts their ankle, back, finger, leg, hand, arm, it's catastrophic and they act like it's RIP city and people are crying and talking about how scared they are, if two members get along and like to spend a lot of time together then that automatically means they're crushing on each other or in s secret relationship.

And:

The misogynists, the homophobics, the akgaes, the sexists, the ageists, the constant mobbing at the airports, the having fits about their faves dating or getting married and still plotting shit against those who dare live their lives just like everybody else on the planet deserves to do. All of it, I just don't want to see it. And as much as I have muted and unfollowed and blocked, the shit still gets through. I want to stay up to date on what my favorites are doing but I don't want to see the stupid shit. Those of you who have managed to not be exposed, mad props, but it hasn't worked for me. I need some advice because I am worn out by fans, not the kpop groups themselves

First, I don't believe the people who I see commenting and Ask-ing etc who say "wow I don't get how you see all this stuff wow I never see it." These people are either liars who want to make you feel crazy (gaslighters, lol) or they're only going on Tumblr and just got here so they haven't seen it yet. YET.

All fandom experiences have pieces of what you describe Anon, but it's Kpop fandoms that are the most extreme. And this is because it's driven by teens and mostly young girls. As much as people want to be the exception to the rule, the majority of people in these fandoms are still kids (up to 25 yrs old). Beyond kids, you have a lot of people of different ages with unhealthy fixations. I mean, how many "army" have you met who say their only happiness is BTS? I don't at all judge those people, but we have to be honest in saying that's not in the realm of healthy mindsets. When you put your happiness in people you don't know, that's a huge gamble.

A lot of people are fixated with online fandom community because they're filling in a void in their life; it can be a hobby (probably reasonably healthy) or it can be the person's reason to keep going. That's why you see such extreme reactions. When you're 12, everything is the end of the world. When your entire life is Baekhyun, his sore throat is gonna be the height of anxiety to you. Again, I'm not judging this; different strokes for different folks.

So what advice can I give you? Perhaps just to understand why it's happening and take breaks from it when it's not adding to your life. I mute people a lot. Basically, I put them in time-out. Even on DM too (oops secret's out!). If someone is crying about something I find infantalizing and a detriment to my life, I close it off and move on; I come back when/if I have time for that. I tend to unmute people when I can't remember what they did that was annoying. It works well. I can always re-mute. And this saves the block drama.

The easiest fix tho? Close Twitter, Tumblr, IG, etc and do something different. Watch a movie. Go out with friends. Or, watch a concert to remind you why you're really here. My "fangirling" is mostly in private, where I get to watch Taemin and SHINee concerts whenever I feel like it, by myself or with family and friends, and the only person whose opinion matters in mine.

Recently I watched SHINee World IV with my mom. She adored Jonghyun. Just gotta say that. ;)

[yourgamemasterthewhiterabbit]

I guess since I'm the hell out of there and enough time has gone by I can explain what the hell was up with my name and rebrand while I was living with Fine and GB...

Because yes I completely changed my online image and my screen name and all my graphics after over 10 years of not doing that and kept changing my urls on zero notice... I even used Ai to make some new graphics again after that when I am in fact a digital artist myself and I know some people feel like that's a weird choice for me too.

Warning for just about damn near fucking everything:

After the first assault and then using my memory issues to do it the fuck again, it triggered me into remembering both instances and dumping all sense of connection to GB and I told him we weren't together anymore, so he wasn't allowed to use any of my stuff, or my bathroom -he also flooded it once and pretended nothing happened- and that he wasn't allowed to come into my back end of the basement anymore, and that I didn't want to speak to him about it.

In response he wrote me two separate and weird poems or notes acing like he didn't understand what was going or on claiming innocence about not understanding that his behaviour was harmful to me. Yes, do not put it past someone to try to force you to touch their dick and then act like that isn't harmful behaviour. Yeah, don't put it past them to wait until you don't seem to be remembering that it happened and that you have expressed that you never want to have sex again, when they know you have memory problems and issues with dissociating, to try to have sex with you again, and then act like that isn't harmful. Like they can't possibly know it would be harmful. Yes, even after being told I didn't want to kiss him either because of the risks to my health at the time, he still waited until I wasn't on guard to stop him, kissed me, then smirked and gasped about it, like he obviously fucking knew, and then tried to play innocent about it. He's say shit like "but why wouldn't you want me getting close to your mom?" and other shit like he was constantly testing to see if he could catch me dissociated again and not remembering what he did. All this after I explained how deeply traumatizing it was for men to do this to take advantage of me before. He knew. But he's skated by his whole life on everything by acting confused and like he can't understand. He understood well enough to use it to manipulate me until it stopped working.

He also started following me around. Anytime other people weren't home he would glue himself to my side and constantly talk to me and ask me questions about our relationship. Who I was going out with, constant grilling about who I was going to go see, where I was going, what my relationship was to anyone else I had contact with. "just curious :)" All after being told hundreds of times how stressing me out too much about something is how my brain ends up locking it in a box for later, after being told how making me stressed out about something is how to make me forget it involuntarily. Of course, thankfully, he misinterpreted what that meant, and had selective earwax about the part where once there was more bullshit than anything good, a switch would flip and he'd be stuck with the version of me that remembers -only- the abuse, while all the other memories die in their place... But the point is he started stalking and harassing me.

And he started going out of his way to get so fucking extra chummy and attentive with Fine and Tictacs and literally everyone around us.

He was my housemate and my only way to buy anything I needed online. We had to communicate over rent and bills and anything I couldn't buy locally.

And he started doing really ballsy shit like trying to bond with me over how 'stupid his therapist was being' by telling him he hadn't done anything wrong and how none of it was his fault "haha crazy ammairite? XD" Like he thinks I an so fucking stupid...

...

And then corona started, Fine infected me while trying to hide it was even happening because I was on a social media hiatus, and I got too sick to get out of bed, for months and he was the only one willign to bring me supplies.

Thankfully at that point he knew that if he tried anything overt I'd just call the cops... But he controlled my food, what cleaning supplies I got. I got really fucking sick multiple times after eating food he brought me, he refused to bring me the supplies I needed to clean up after the cats or to kill to toxic mould in my room from the flooding he helped cause... Bread he brought me was spoiling in 3 days with horrendous amounts of black mould, lots of things seemed tampered with.

I told my doctor he might be poisoning me and I wanted to get tests done and she said "well we can't do these procedures and tests on a 'maybe' u.u" As if the proof of him poisoning me didn't rely on those tests???

Yes you heard right, my doctor wouldn't confirm if my housemate was poisoning me so I could take legal action to stop him having physical access to me and my food in my own home!

And I couldn't tell you about it because he had access to my blog and to me in my own home!

Then after long enough of being deathly ill but not actually dying. He stopped. He just started refusing to bring me anything at all. He wasn't getting whatever he wanted out of bringing me supplies and just left me to die.

He kept letting the dryer exhaust flood into the whole basement where only my room was instead of doing what he was repeatedly told to do with the lint trap.

So, suffering the symptoms of multiple organ failure, post covid from hell, every autoimmune fuckery it triggered, CO exposure, black mould in my room with mould allergies that was closing up my lungs, Fine using cleaning supplies I was high-key allergic to and REFUSING to stop, having daily heart attacks from my blood minerals being wildly off from what I now realize was the same kidney malfunction causing me to not pee for a week around that time, and all the bone pain... Which I also told my doctor about, and the hospital, to zero fucking effect... and jaundiced as hell and barely able to remember what I was thinking for a whole 2 seconds at a time, I realized I was dying and absolutely no one would help me. I got angry about it.

Even my mother and Tictacs both, when asked to check in on me daily to make sure I responded, both waited a week before sending me some passive aggressive "so are you sill alive" fucking bullshit message and not waiting for a response. Like I cannot stress enough how much surrounded by people and actively asking for help, I am still alone in everything.

So I took the bed out of my room, treated it with the last watered down mould enzyme spray and built myself a replacement bed out of rope and palette board. Instead of a 3x6 foot mass harbouring moisture 6 inches over my floor, I had a woven net bed that was over a meter off the ground in the driest corner of my room with only a yoga mat in it to insulate me from the cold of the floor, so it wouldn't harbour moisture. I put a latch on the dryer exhaust and started cleaning the filter out myself. I researched my symptoms however I could and found things I could eat without having cardiac spasms. I started to be able to pee again after a week and all the pressure in my abdomen went away. I got less yellow. etc...

And how much of dying at the the time was corona and autoimmune VS being actively or passively poisoned? WHO KNOWS! My doctors sure as fuck weren't going to help me figure that out!

And the timeline is a little fucky for me because I had 1-2 viruses and my immune system trying to eat my brain while my organs failed and I was being exposed to carbon monoxide from the drier exhaust and to black mould. So forgive me if some of this is out of order, but this would be around the time you saw photos of the nest/bed I made in my closet. I couldn't tell you all of what was going on at the time. I think I also tried paper making because the humidity in my room had been jacked for over a year anyway??? I had needed something to work on in my room that kept me up and moving around.

I recovered enough-ish and started climbing out the back window of my room to get my own supplies, and so I could leave the house without him noticing and to avoid breathing upstairs. It's also how I had to take out my garbage and etc, because Fine and GB refused to do absolutely anything to not constantly bring corona into the house, but they mostly stayed upstairs. There was a living area downstairs but my room was down a hall after the laundry room off of that and so was my bathroom and neither of them had any excuse to be there. We remember this.

And yet I got the distinct impression he was coming in there when I was out.

In addition to following me around --but only when no one was paying attention or was home to notice, so he obviously fucking knew it was wrong-- he had my url to follow me here on tumblr.

And the problem is that your internet history maintains links, even if you change the url. Firefox would just update that shit. And most of the time he left the house he would take his whole desktop computer with him to his mothers, so I didn't have access to it.

You need physical access to a computer in most cases to good and truly wipe the links to sites that their browser has recently accessed. Just changing your url and IP does jack shit, and yes I know that.

And I had told him to stop checking up on me. To stop talking to me socially, to stop looking at my blog, to respect my fucking boundaries. After years of him hearing about how other people following me around or outright stalking me or fucking with my memory was a seriously fucking traumatizing issue that kept ruining my life.

And he kept saying shit to me he couldn't have possibly known unless he was checking up on my blog, and I just had to keep playing stupid so he wouldn't stop incriminating himself to me. Even after I deleted any follower that might conceivably be him. [yes I went through what was 300+ followers at the time, probably shot a lot of bots in the process]

I didn't want to lose all the followers I had gained for my writing etc, only to not shake him off my ass anyway because he had access to me in my own house!

So I did what I could. I changed my entire image to something that seemed a little out of left field at the time for me, so I didn't look like me anymore and the name was different, and kept changing the exact spelling of my URL across social media, unlinked things, got a vpn... And whenever he left the house and didn't bring his computer with him, I would sneak upstairs and repeatedly wipe his internet history and ect as thoroughly as I could... And then immediately change my url again and hope he wasn't also looking at my tumblr on computer systems at his mom's house.

All in the hopes that the link wouldn't be maintained and when he put in the name or spelling he thought he remembered he wouldn't be able to find me again. And if he did he might not be sure it was even me.

And I kept telling Fine and anyone else who would listen to not give him links to my social media, not to let him use their computers. I never knew if they took it seriously.

And I couldn't really say anything to you guys about the gritty details of what was happening -while it was happening- because he had 24 hour access to me in my own home and potentially still had access to my blog. So if I even seemed like I was too suspicious about the potential of being poisoned or if I looked like I was remembering the assault, etc... He would see that and have access to me. I don't know what details I have talked about since but I do know I've probably been too angry/avoidant to really give the full rundown in context... Probably, my memory is shit.

So I used people coming into our yard and fucking with our bikes as an excuse to get him to help me buy a security camera online. I tried to confirm multiple times with him that it would work on any system, because I prefer cheap android phones, and he kept just saying "it'll work with what you have :)" and that's why I am stuck with a stupid apple product that will ONLY work on the replacement phone his mother gave me second hand, or another 600$ fucking dollar phone [also my new phone only got broken because of him sabotaging me too, but that's another story... but also it will work with my tablet and I bet he didn't fucking think of that now did he?]... But I took that security camera and I aimed it down the hall facing away from my room, so I would be alerted and have video evidence any time someone tried to approach my room.

And I lived like that because having to move during the pandemic by rights should have killed me.

But eventually, Fine was threatening to move out and leave me alone with him, to go live with a guy she knows wants to fuck her in a very one-sided way out in BC, with him promising to pay for everything and let her live with him... And wouldn't listen to sense... So I had to chose between bringing another roommate or two into that existing circumstance, and telling them about the problem, thus guaranteeing we would never find anyone, or not telling them about the problem...

But see my landlord actually had a legal obligation, as my landlord, to evict other tenants who were abusing me. Like that's in his fucking job description, legally! Replacing both of them would be better than any other option...

So I bit the bullet and told my landlord what GB was doing to me. The landlord who kept acting like my friend and kept saying we were friends and I could go to him if there was a problem.

And he told me that'd have to be "between [me] and the police :)" That he wasn't going to put himself in the middle of it or help me.

...

And then within 3 months he decided to sell the house and evict us.

And when he brought up having another apartment in a building he managed/owned that he could rent to one of us, Fine leapt to try to snatch it up right in front of me, both of them knowing the situation I was in, and I never heard back about it. [So much for "I would never let you be homeless u.u" right, Fine? But then you didn't care GB kept trying to rape me either and kept calling that a "two sided issue" so I don't know what the fuck I expected. Not only would you -let- me be homeless and assaulted but you'd sell me to Satan for a corn chip... Don't worry she won't see that because I told her to stop looking at my blog too, so if she does that's a 'her' problem]

Which is how I ended up being forced into a 1000$ apartment on a disability pension that I at least get to myself.

And well I have certainly been documenting how THAT all went with the movers and their bullshit and everything I have been struggling with since...

And that's why I was such an obnoxious asshole with changing my url for a while there and why suddenly rebranding with no fucking warning after I spent years not doing that, and promising I wouldn't do that unless it became necessary.

I wasn't out here -trying- to make it hard to follow me or keep track of who I was for anyone, just GB. Well, him and every other stalker I have had or every other person who didn't respect it when I told them to stop reading my blog...

That's the stalking issue I was having, not -THAT- guy, not the second guy, not Moriarty again... Just like... The latest guy.

[yeonchi]

The Liamasterink (and friends) Fact Check

In this current year era of woke leftist mainstream media, fact-checking has become a way for people of influence to combat misinformation or cover up their lies. This post is one of those, albeit given how Sea Princesses is a niche series, fact checking things about this series isn't as controversial compared to broader subjects.

Liamasterink has recently taken to posting Sea Princesses theories to his YouTube Community page, which I practically follow daily. I noticed he's been saying some things that are not quite accurate, and rather than fact-check him in the comments (because his fans predominantly speak Spanish, the names on my YouTube accounts don't match my online identity and Liam makes so many Community posts that I can't scroll any further than a month ago for some reason), I'll be fact-checking him through posts like this on Tumblr.

How I trolled the Sea Princesses renaissance

This one's more recent than the topics I'll be covering after this, but I just had to share this first.

In my reviews of the second and third Combo Rangers reboot graphic novels, there is a storyline skit at the beginning and end of each of them titled The Interdimensional Café, and one of the plot points involved Hiroki, Sougo and Polvina fighting Polvina clones in my universe. Out of the clones are five distinct types; two of them are the regular Polvina from the animated series and the books, while the other three are the sexy variant, the zombie variant and the Lula/Bernie Sanders/Daniel Andrews variant.

Presumably from a fan finding these and sending them to him, Liam has posted the sexy and zombie Polvina variants as community posts and I have to say, it was amusing to read the reactions from his fans, ranging from "Oh no, what did they do to you?" to "How disturbing". It's honestly telling that people were actually commenting that the artist who drew the sexy Polvina was "sick" for drawing such fanart of a 7 year old girl. God, you're all a bunch of fucking prudes. It's clear that media like the movie Cuties has radicalised people against the sexualisation of children, but this is a drawing we are talking about and I think people are overreacting about this because no real children have been harmed (directly) because of a raunchy drawing of a fictional character. But whatever on that point, because I'll bet you'll shit bricks when I tell you who really drew those variants.

So, the artist who really drew those Polvina variants was, in fact, Fabio Yabu himself, and they were originally posted on his blog. Now, he doesn't really talk about Sea Princesses on it so there's not much about it in the archives, but Yabu did post the Polvina variants, which are luckily archived:

Sexyna

Zombina

Lulina

Of note, "Sexyna"'s head design ended up being used in The Makeover as a rather decent design and the point where Ester and Tubarina should have stopped, something which a commenter pointed out (well, the opposite, anyway, that it was inspired from there) and I acknowledged in the storyline skit.

Well then, feel stupid yet?

The cancellation blame game

On 25 April, Liam posted a poll asking his fans who was the main cause of Sea Princesses being cancelled. It was a question with an answer rather than a survey and the answer was "Fabio Yabu himself".

I'm going to tell you all what I told Liam on Discord about this because he brought it up to me in DMs, but there's a little extra commentary here. OK, so to be honest, the exact circumstances of the series' cancellation are unclear, but we do know that according to Flamma, there was no interest in producing a third series. I know I said on the wiki that "Flamma had no interest in producing a third series", making it sound like it was Flamma's decision, but again, the exact circumstances are unclear.

In the answer explanation, Liam claimed that Fabio Yabu "returned to work in a franchise that no one remembered anymore as the Combo Rangers" (machine translated). Firstly, production on the series concluded in 2009, not 2013, and secondly, I resent that statement as a tokusatsu fan (and as someone who just reviewed the other two Combo Rangers reboot graphic novels) because Liam underestimated how much of a phenomenon Combo Rangers was in Brazil and the background as to why it was loved by 80's and 90's kids back in the day.

Yes, I agree that the people who made the animated series didn't tap into the full potential that Sea Princesses had. Issues with the writing and character focuses aside, there are also financial circumstances to note here. The first season (I believe) had a budget of US$7 million (in 2005 money, which would be over US$10 million in current year). Animation costs are measured per half hour (which is actually 23 to 26 minutes discounting ad breaks) and the average cost for half an hour of animation is US$200,000 (according to Reynaldo Marchezini of Flamma Films in 2009), not to mention the global financial crisis that happened during the time when the second season would be in production. Also keep in mind that Sea Princesses was produced during a time when Brazilian-made animations were relatively unknown to the world (this one isn't exactly Brazilian-made entirely, but still), so if Southern Star hadn't gotten involved (out of the three or four companies that showed interest in a co-production), the animated series wouldn't have been made in the first place, let alone distributed to over 100 countries.

Also, in my correspondence with Fabio Yabu, he has said that being an artist in Brazil isn't as easy as it is in the West and so, he has to take on various projects and appeal to various audiences in order to make a living, so I think Liam was being really unfair to him here. Sure, I'd like to see more Sea Princesses content from him and I wish he did more to preserve its content on social media, but in the end, you can't really blame him because this is clearly something he has a passion for and loves to do. Plus, the guy's gotta make a living somehow.

In summary, Fabio Yabu may not be entirely to blame for Sea Princesses not receiving a third season and there were potentially other factors that all parties involved had to consider.

Errors in production

The next thing I want to talk about is another Community post where Liam speculates why there were production errors in Sea Princesses and basically, he gets a lot of things wrong because he got a fundamental thing wrong about animation production. I won't attach the whole post as an image, but if the post disappears at some point, then I've backed it up into my cloud drive folder and will make it available to anyone who's interested, though I'll try to summarise it here.

The fundamental thing of producing animated series is that the audio comes first before the animation. Southern Star, as executive producers, handled the creation of the scripts, storyboards and audio, Flamma handled the character design and approval of the scripts, then Neptuno Films handled all the animation and post-production.

Errors in production are always going to happen. In regards to the animation, mistakes like a character saying a line with somebody else's voice would probably come down to someone misinterpreting something in the script and the mistake not being caught until it was too late to change anything else in time. In The Return, Elektra mistaking Leia for Isa was most likely a script misinterpretation on Neptuno's end and not the fault of her voice actress, Meaghan Davies (also "star talent didn't have much experience" my ass, that's an oxymoron in itself plus I wouldn't expect her to be a "star talent" given her previous experience).

I can't apply this to the rest of the series, but from what little I could discern while watching Lost in both the Brazilian Portuguese and Latin American Spanish dubs, they fixed the mistakes the English dub made; I know this for certain with the Castilian Spanish dub. Dubbing usually takes place after the episode has finished production and a separate script needs to be made to have the dubbed voice lines fit the length of the original voice line (mouth movements are where people really need to stop caring so much imo). Liam blames the director of the Latin American Spanish dub, Hector Moncada, for making the dub "mediocre" with all the mistakes from the finished original episode ported to the dub; yet again, I can't say for certain with the rest of the series, but I don't think he is to blame for the mistakes that the English dub made if he wasn't warned about them. That being said, if Moncada was warned about the mistakes in the original version and he actually managed to make the same mistakes in the Latin American Spanish dub, then he's a fucking idiot.

With regards to recycling voice actors and actresses, that's not really a surprise considering that the same thing happened in the original English dub, though I haven't been able to exactly pinpoint who voiced who with references to back it up. Voice actors voicing multiple characters (or characters being voiced by different voice actors between appearances or seasons) is not a new thing and it isn't surprising that it happened here considering how little focus most characters got (or actor availability).

Moving back to the animation and Liam points out the clone issue that I've pointed out in like three episodes on the wiki. Stage Fright, The Carnival and Lunch Power were what I believe to be cases of Neptuno using up all the character models they had, resulting in them cloning models for filler, even in places where it was illogical for certain characters to be there, while in Tubarina Almighty (among other potential cases), there were clones of Jessi and Leia that could have been prevented if they just used different models instead of the same few that the production team thought kids would recognise. I would have liked to see more character models featured, but there is only so much you can do with a USD$7 million budget.

Liam also points out the Combo Rangers (or Madruga and Barriga from El Chavo del Ocho) being adapted into Drylanders and how they were recycled between episodes featuring Drylanders. He also seems to point out the appearance of Bonnie as a Drylander near the end of The Rescue as illogical, but I think he neglected to note that Fabio Yabu originally designed Bonnie as part of a generic elderly couple, the male model never making it into the series.

And obviously, there was the cuts in the Discovery Kids versions which I've pointed out so many times before. I finally decided to start documenting those cuts last month after giving up once and wondering whether I should actually do it or not, and let me tell you, it's just as much a drag as I thought it would be. It took some time for me to figure out how I would do it, but I managed to figure it out. Details of the cuts will be put onto the wiki eventually and I'll also do a top 10 list of the worst cut episodes in the series.

Basically, the animation errors were something that was always going to happen, the clones could have been resolved in some cases by using different character models and the dubbing errors were something that Liam got wrong from the start because the audio is recorded before the animation is drawn and the international dubs are recorded after the original episode has finished production.

I want to share this funny minicomic that Liam made about the clone situation and I hope those scientists are Salacian because that's important for my upcoming story. No, I'm not talking about the Polvina clones from The Interdimensional Café, but they are still relevant.

Scientist 1: Sir, the clones have escaped again. Scientist 2: Oh my. I hope those clones don't go into Salacia.

Polvina: So girls, what're we doing today? Tubarina: We can play with Delfi at her palace. Ester: Isn't she hanging out at the park?

(the joke here is that Delfi seems to be both at her palace and the park, meaning that at least one of them is a clone)

I might as well have created (the sequels to) Sea Princesses

On Twitter, there's a guy by the name of Ricardo Mita claiming himself to be a co-creator of the series on Fabio Yabu's Twitter feed. I wasn't going to call him out because his antics were boring, but I decided to speak up about this when he spammed similar comments onto one of Liam's YouTube Community posts, which led him to believe the same thing as well.

I don't need to tell you how much of an idiot Ricardo is because anyone else who believes his lies is just as much of an idiot as he is. I also don't need to tell you that the best source of information for Sea Princesses is the Sea Princesses Wiki (for character, episode and book information) or this Tumblr (for that and pretty much everything else).

Look, I can see that Ricardo's got his own takes and ideas on the series, expanding some episodes into two-parters and even having an episode list for a potential third series, but with no synopses (don't worry, I used to make episode lists without writing synopses as well). By his logic I might as well be a co-creator of the series as well with all the work I've put into it for the renaissance and my personal project. I hope Ricardo finds the strength one day to channel his energy into fleshing out his ideas and even writing out his story synopses in (neatly formatted) social media posts.

My Seafood Princesses

An amusing piece of news to round off this post. In the commune of Renca in Santiago, Chile, there is a fish shop called Pescaderia Mis Princesas Del Mar, or in my translation, My Sea Princesses Seafood or My Seafood Princesses. Considering how we see the Shark Royal Family eating fish in Big Brother, Grow Up and The True Princess, this is both amusing and harrowing.

The shopfront sign, which has been on the shop since it opened sometime between 2012 and 2014, also has images of the main three girls, including a duplicate Polvina with her book design on a seahorse. The sign has been updated between 2015 and 2022 and while it retains the Sea Princesses-style logo on the shopfront sign, the images of the main three girls seem to be no more.

Anyway, that's it for this fact-checking post. I'll do another one when Liam gets some things wrong again.