#my ghost can't stop me from shitposting

[vannetsed]

I had a dream about a destiny spinoff game. The concept was "you are a lightbearer but for whatever reason you can't do live combat, so you work at the tower and get into whatever nonsense happens there". Highlights included picking up sidequests from random guardians, cleaning the hangar(frequently), and collecting records of which guardians you'd seen as though they were trading cards(every guardian had a rated rarity and power level, lmao). honestly id play it

[casuallyferal]

It's been announced that Elon is reflecting on making X membership exclusive, ie where you pay to have an X membership.

With the upcoming death of X, I find myself having meta thoughts about my fandoms, the art community, and where they intersect; and, how much those things radically-and-completely changed after the death of Tumblr -- and still haven't recovered.

(this does relate to Cross!Sans' recent win I prommy just give me a minute)

...

To start off with an example:

Some folks still remember the mass death of Tumblr.

It's hard to describe it to people who didn't see it.

There were actual casualties. Y'all remember that, too? The deaths?

Most of them were because for many people, their ~5-10 years of portfolio disappeared overnight with no recovery. Even for folks who had backups, the little things that mattered most, like reblog-chains, had been compromised. I remember reading a vent post that stuck w/ me of a college applicant sobbing because their blog was going to be their portfolio to apply, and the needed morning, it was gone. They lived through an abusive home and lost their out. They stopped posting after that.

There are keystone works that now only exist in our minds.

Cornerstones of both fandom and people's real lives were erased by a mega corp afraid of organic Human sensuality, the artist's familiar muse. A kiss, a shirtless photo, a man lounging in the sun, didn't matter. Gone with no explanatory messages. Everything was very unstable about the rules for a disturbingly long time with ghost-edits to the sitewide rules, and vague lettering. If you posted a single dangly bit, you're out. If you posted male or female nypples at any point, you're out. The rules now aren't the rules that were for a little while, long enough to carve up careers and sink fandoms.

As a case study:

Try to understand that if you're a new arrival into an old fandom from the Before Times, like say Undertale,

... you arrived into a fandom carved into quarters.

Everything we cared about and definitive blogs & art pieces vanished. I was temporarily surprised that Cross!Sans won the AU contest instead of the longtime fandom favorites like G!Sans.

For years, he was our fandom mascot.

I had a harrowing realization and began doomscrolling to confirm that nobody can find 👌the showstopping sensuality 👌😩 of G!Sans. It's gone.

G-o-n-e gone, can't find it anywhere, like that mfker into his smoke.

Our fandom values and cultural pillars that we built ourselves were deleted off-site by some Suits.

Everything the young people inherited was bleached-out and fucking sanitized by a corporation. We had no choice but to tolerate that, even as self aware as we were about it.

...this cultural-drift was not because of natural evolution, but because we weren't sterile enough to "make the cut;" and now, it's definitive with a clear before/after gap.

...

I'm of the opinion that the online art community has never really recovered from these repeat events.

It's never been the same:

I see a lot less WIPs unless it's teasing a piece.

I see less reckless abbandon in artwork. There's less scribbles.

There's less breath on the canvas.

People tightened their shit up into hyper polished presentation-pieces.

There's less shitposting in general. People used to post doodles and silly faces and polished pieces were in between.

I think this new media relationship comes from a place of collective hurt. I think many of us realized all society gives a fuck about is money money money money for something that for many of us is a necessary biproduct of being alive. The people who couldn't handle that never came back. They Told Us So when they left, and coincidentally, never came back -- or came back different.

❕ (brief cw cp)

As necessary aside, I'm not lumping in the CP -- it's that every platform has CP, and addressing CP head-on on a platform like Tumblr also meant having regulations that corporate with legal, consensual sensuality, and that's not feasible without endorsing that exists... AND, is deeply influential to many artists. Tumblr wasn't willing to do that.

Tumblr wasn't willing to accept ads from orgs that are okay with that, either.

❕ (cw over)

I feel like this keeps happening... Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter/X... because it comes from a cultural climate of fear towards the veritable Human qualities, some raw, beastial, or even vestigial, of which is the Creative's foundational wellspring. What inspires is often transgressive, and there's no room for such things on a corporate level due to the sterile inhumanity of present day economics. If it's not palettable enough that it can be sold to stockholders with polished floors and dry-cleaned suits, we're a weed between the concrete.

Get too tall and we're seen as a disordered presentation of society instead of just... just, Human. Raw, beastial, vestigially Human.

...

At the end of the day,

our inherently-self-expressive Human potential keeps getting butchered alive by fear of sex & sensuality and love, and the bitter taste of culturally dominant hatespeech; to really spit on the situation, the biggest driver behind both of those is economic. There's a desire knit into the social fabric to squeeeeeeze every fkn penny possible out of an inherently involuntary part of the Creative's experience.

For many, creating freely is a necessary part of a Creative's self-regulation, regardless of whether it's just a hobby or a career path. Creatives create things. We have to or we wilt. It is counter-intuitive to the nature of Wall Street, as it stands, and so it will never favor us -- let alone begin to understand that, without overhaul.

For me, painting is like breathing, I have to do it or I become ill.

...

...It's like... they bottled our air.

Dammed our wellsprings and sell our own work back to us in plastic jugs. Elusive, ominous "they," vague because it's a lottery for whoever plays "them" next; executioner with hanging-rope in hand to strange the creative experience.

There's nothing sacred left when it's all about making money.

...so, where's next?

(: Might as well grit our teeth about it and stay organized. Mastodon, I think? Dreamwidth also? Misskey? Where have you heard? Where do I go, now?

I miss the reblog-artfights and having Tumblr friends before it was deleted by a suit, and I don't want to lose that.

[vannetsed]

hey if anyone likes my art uh. id be open to doing a commission

[vannetsed]

so in the dream i was just having sed really did say "if someone misgenders me and i cause a diplomatic incident in response that's really not on me" and they're so right

[vannetsed]

one day the city wakes up to discover that the bust of cayde has been replaced with a large, shiny statue depicting all the former hunter vanguards in a conga line, wearing party hats. commander zavala comments that the perpetrators of this act of vandalism will be found. commander rey comments 'it's what he would have wanted'

[vannetsed]

consider: somehow, some of the top fashion names in the City have convinced lord shaxx to hold a no-armour crucible tournament. there are prizes for the five guardians with the top kill counts, and for the five guardians voted most stylish. does your guardian enter, what do they wear, and how do they place

[vannetsed]

the cloud striders get THERAPY? man they have a way better deal than guardians

[vannetsed]

anyway i had a dream today and my subconscious confirmed that Crow smells like fresh laundry. and that he wears very soft shirts

[vannetsed]

Like okay ghosts are very aro vibes but I bet there's a handful out there who do dating. Like for fun.

[vannetsed]

New canon queer characters is great but tbh I personally would have preferred if, instead of confirming some ones everyone already knew, they had just come out of nowhere and gone ‘shaxx is trans happy coming out day’

[vannetsed]

...so as cool as it is to learn that there was an ahamkara who wasn't an asshole, that cutscene was 100% going "riven isn't a monster, see, she can Love!!!1!" and im. kinda madge

[vannetsed]

Fuck it, dreams-posting time. I had a dream recently in which a portal had opened up between the destiny universe and the mass effect universe, and in which I was Sed, having to Deal With That. More specifically, having to attend a Diplomatic Event at which representatives from both worlds were meeting to do the "hello this is us and our situation over in this universe" thing. It was very exhausting, not least of which was because Crow somehow roped me into babysitting Mara Sov for the second half of the event. (He gave me an "I'm sorry" hug but.) The one good thing about it was that I did get to hold a tiny duckling(someone from the other universe had already heard that the avian life in the Last City was Lacking and had decided to bring a few ducklings along to gift to the Tower representatives).

[vannetsed]

also the reason sed has been gone for the past several seasons? they were in full time therapy. it seems to have helped a little.

[vannetsed]

i want SO BADLY to play this season but like. my brain won’t let me because of how uncomfortable i am with mara sov. ugh this is hard

[vannetsed]

i wish i felt like actually playing =( i have solo burnout though