#i used to have a twitter but i gave up on it

[thefirsthogokage]

....you really didn't read my post carefully, did you l.

First of all, I think though in the beginning that yes, Eliot is pro-state, which is why he doesn't punch cops. But knowing that they wanted his dad to be Black since season 1 of the OG series? That changed my perspective a little. Eliot beat up military personnel, agents, etc. Just not cops. He specifically said NOT COPS.

You also completely misinterpreted that sentence. I never said Eliot GAVE anyone the talk, rather that he either heard it from his parents directly or indirectly.

And if you think the showrunners are pro cops, you have ENTIRELY missed John Rogers' Twitter history. That man hates cops and the government. You also missed everything in the show that calls out cops, military, governments, and federal agencies as complete shit.

Maybe the use of "Good Boy" was a mistake. I probably should have said "Good Kid". It was never intended as anything sexual. I'm on the ace spectrum, that shit doesn't occur to me like that often.

I'm not putting him under any sort of white liberal progressiveness. The only way I can think you think I did is because of your one misreading of a sentence. I did not fetishize his family. I'm not even sure you know what that word means.

Please learn to read more carefully, both on Tumblr and the media you consume. You might not get as angry if you stop misreading things.

Well, a realization just hit me. Don't know if this is true of not, I don't remember the timing.

Eliot said he didn't hit cops in the OG show. Well now that makes sense. His dad is Black. What do Black parents teach their kids when it comes to dealing with the cops? Part of The Talk. Just do as they say, not that that always work.

He would have at least heard that talk with other foster kids, or teammates, if not given it himself.

And why would he stick to that? Because his dad was upset with him and he was still trying to be a Good Boy in one way.

[askthefamous8]

Even if I haven't been very active lately, 9 years is still pretty significant- happy birthday to the blog!

So like Percy up there I'm gonna do so dome reflecting. This blog's where I've often done that for some reason, but here's the tl'dr for blog related stuff.

• I would like to keep drawing stuff but feeling generally unsure in myself, and I'm wondering if all the years of fandom harrassment have caught up with me • I have one big project in mind, I've been dipping my toe into what I'd need to do it. No spoilers but it was one of the first things I played around with this series, so do with that what you will • If I can keep myself drawing, I want to use more of the original source material since I'm struggling with original ideas. So stuff like redraws, hOpEfULlY even animatics, just like what originally got me so into trains yknow? Because that's fun and sparks joy. And that always goes down a treat with you guys so bonus • As always I appreciate you guys not coming after me for being so inconsistent

The rest of this is me doing what Percy's doing in the drawing and reflecting, as there is indeed much 2 think about. It's also a little sad and venty so, there's your warning there.

.

Ok so obviously a busy year, we moved into our new house that we actually own, I spent most of the year planning our wedding, and then got married. Big stuff. Also! I came off antidepressants in the summer. I've been on them for...basically as long as this blog, 6 months after I started it I think. Which also means I'd been on antidepressants my entire adult life. Feels like a big deal and I guess I'm still adjusting.

Another big thing, but sad, is that my dog died about two weeks ago. If you follow me on twitter you'll have seen her but she did make an appearance here a few Halloweens ago

I got her when she was 13 and had her 8 years after that. So that's been difficult. Unrelated to that (probably), but I just feel...really mediocre. And before you point out the obvious, this has been present even before I came off antidepressants. But yeah just... mediocrity. In myself as a person, how I look, what I draw, my whole life really (barring my marriage thankfully). What have I achieved? I'm 26, I'm not working, I don't feel well, my art isn't good (I don't think so anyway- like yeah it's technically fine I guess but it's not, and has never been, very stand-out or impressive). And lately art doesn't bring me the same joy it once did, and I'm wondering if all the years of harrassment from this fandom (mostly the twitter side, tumblr's been pretty good to me) has finally caught up with me and put me off the whole thing. Or worse, that I just don't have as much of an interest in it anymore. I don't think I'll ever be like "ok yep I'm officially done with this blog" because I'm so stubborn but idk. I want to make things and be creative, I want to make more train art, but it doesn't feel the same. I don't know what's wrong. What do you listen to? What you want vs what you feel? I still enjoy train stuff, I love going to Awdry Ex every year. It's been like this for awhile. It's not even like I have a strong feeling of what I'd rather be doing as far as careers go. And even if I did, oh yeah I'm sure my two degrees in animation will be very relevant in another field (sarcasm). I feel adrift. My sails are open but there is just no wind. Planning my wedding gave me something to do and work on and just, feel useful but now that that's over I feel lost again. Losing my dog, who had become the center of my life because of how vulnerable she had become, hasn't helped.

On the more creative side of things, I also don't really know what to do with this blog's story either. The show's ended as far as most people are concerned, and I kiiinda wrote myself into a corner because once Thomas turns 18 he's going to leave for university, and that sets off this whole arc with James but basically the problem is it involves characters leaving and for some reason that feels like a no-no here. Don't get me started on the timeline lol. But Thomas works on a railway on Sodor, that's how it has to be...right? I guess I'm sort of at a crossroads of, ok do I want this to be close to the source material, and thus easily digestible to newcombers? Or do I want to make it more and more my thing and distanced from the source material? I doubt there's many new people coming since the series ended. And even then, there's a lot more humanization artists around now than when I started, so it's not like I'm filling a niche anymore. Just to be clear it's fine and also good that there's more humanization artists, variety is good, I just don't feel as "needed" anymore (which is 100% in my head and not an actual role that belongs to me or something). I started this blog when I was 17, so my interests and what I relate to have changed obviously. The character designs certainly have. It's never followed a super rigid story plan, but the core of it has always been the central cast doing things on Sodor. I however have always had a scene/project/animatic/whatEver in mind for when this 'series' would '''officially''' ''''end''''. But then what comes after that? I've always tried to run this blog like they are Real People that You interact with. But in real life there is no ending to the story, there's always more stuff to come. You get married, and it's wonderful, and then life goes on. The credits never roll. So maybe that's what I'm having trouble coping with...the progression of time. Ah, my old nemesis. I've always had trouble with letting go of things. There's nothing to say that I couldn't still draw stuff after the series "ends". I guess any story after Thomas leaves could be like... a sequel series or a spin off or something. Spin-off of a spin-off. Famous 8 All Grown Up. Famous 8 Qurter Life Crisis. Who knows. I certainly don't.

I've also been really into an original project unrelated to this but those don't get as much attention and while I'd like to do something with it one day, I don't feel very confident in being able to make that happen right now. But you know... as far my as art not being super spectacular goes... I think my individual talent has always been is my ideas, like the writing side of things. And then brought to life with my art, which normally isn't anything to write home about but is good enough to convey the idea and be not-awful to look at, lifts both of them beyond what they were individually. Maybe that's what I should focus on. Maybe that's wishful thinking.

So....idk. Idk what I'm doing but I'm trying to be gentle on myself and just let myself continue to drift, to heal from this heavy loss, and then in the New Year I'll try and pick myself up. Then there will be no more big once-in-a-lifetime events coming up, no more just-moved-into-a-house-and-oh-no-there's-a-bunch-of-things-that-need-attention-NOW scenarios, and no more big holidays for awhile. I guess we'll see.

If you read all of this I am so sorry but also thank you for reading my ramblings. And thank you for being around, whether that's been for a few months or for several years, but especially if it's been several years

[x1702x]

Grr grr thinking about my con stand fr im so hyped (I will have to wait a year for it)

[royalarchivist]

Quackity: Oh, it's gonna be so cool to see how this develops. I'm excited, I'm gonna try my best. I'm not the greatest at Minecraft whatsoever, I did nerf Green Team a little bit by accident on the second day. My bad! But, you know, I'm so ready to just grind out and see what we can do, and I just–

I wish everyone saw it with the same amount of, like, kind of enthusiasm. I think all of this and all the development and all the potential arcs, that's going to fcking allow for something absolutely incredible.

And if anyone ends up clipping any of this, something I do want to say is I implore people to view everything with a lot of enthusiasm. No stress, no anxiety, just a lot of enthusiasm. Because, again, this is going to allow for a lot of cool things in the server. Not just now, but in the future, too.

[ilynpilled]

why must everything that the text clearly states atp be misconstrued like i really dont get it he has plenty of flaws in that relationship but we, and cersei, know that he was ready to kill robert for just the disrespect of the cheating if cersei said the word. he doesnt concern himself with the personal consequences, he is reckless, detached from a lot of things, and can close his eyes at the future if he doesn’t want to acknowledge it. also the concern over the “shame” and ned type judgement feels so overestimated to me atp. he never regrets aerys, he is mad at how he is perceived (but again, notably doesnt try to rectify it by telling the truth for a lot of complex reasons), but he would never take it back. if he believes its the right thing to do, and is not overdosing on copium trying to juggle vows he cares about, he will do it, reputation be damned. though he has selfish concerns regarding being viewed as good, the internal matters so much more than the external: see weirwood dream: who actually shows up? what makes the fire go out? “it was not him. it was never him”, see the trebuchet fiasco, see the choice in adwd. why shouldnt we take cersei at face value when she implies that if jaime knew about the physical abuse he would have killed him? he loves and cares about cersei to an insane degree, even if he can be selfish toxic and unhealthy too. not to mention he would be glad to kill robert anyway lol. i really find it very very difficult to imagine that he wouldnt have killed him based on almost every single part of his characterization.

[occasionaltouhou]

i had a bunch of those fangames played for me ages back and unfortunately my general impression was that they were kind of needlessly complicated without actually having much flavour to the characters themselves. most of the designs aren't particularly distinct or memorable either so it's just. it just kinda ends up an unsatisfying meal. also most of the music is kinda whatever i gotta be real

[blackpearlblast]

i'm not saying "i saw this coming" in an "i told you so" way but more than i happened to remake my account earlier this year so i ended up getting the "new user" experience and it seems pretty clear they were using new users as guinea pigs for their non-chronological following dashboard. and it sucks. you have to switch your dashboard over to "following" every time you refresh and there's no way to change the default to following. they said they were working on adding a way to change your default dashboard but i was always pretty damn skeptical of that given they went to the effort to making things DIFFERENT for newer accounts like, that does not show good intentions that shows going after people who don't know that they could have a better experience. and now they're trying to push it onto older users too, which was clearly always the plan. maybe i should've made more of a fuss but... honestly.... I am not a blogging warrior i am a sleepy insect. i just want to use tumblr to talk to friends and look at cool art and the weird dashboard stuff on my new account definitely gets in the way of that. basically the main feature that still makes tumblr worthwhile is our desktop blogs and the ability to sort and search posts using tags through someone's archive. but they're probably going to want to take that away too.

[13eyond13]

Do you like any other social media app besides Tumblr?

I watch YouTube a lot but I dont know if that counts as social media? I really don't use any social media these days except tumblr to post things myself

[millieshat]

some backlog of scuffed art to commemorate our dear overlord’s return \o/

[likedbyuarmyhope]

i’ve really been an army for over six years huh. i’ve been an army for almost a third of my life

[thevampirearchive]

An option to go live? Does @staff not know us? We’re scrolling in our dungeons, content with likes from our fav 10 strangers — strangers we happen to have known for an alarming amount of time w/o knowing their first name…. But they think we wanna go live?

[sappymix1]

[weirdlizard26]

the most fun part of being trans is that after you come up with a few names for yourself, you'll start thinking but what if i made up a surname too

[bowtiestash]

i’m going to try to be more active on tumblr because of the way twitter’s going, just a heads up

[cheesomancer]

Btw updated that meme, so new version with two arts is here.

Finally, second art for monsterfucker meme! Version without braided cheese on twitter.

[reckless-rider]

hey i have a bluesky now!!