#only Facebook is where I remember to post my art

[seancurry1]

Remember, Thou Art Barnacle

A serenity prayer for election day.

Originally posted on my website.

The Ann Selzer Iowa poll, regarded as the gold standard in all of political polling, shows Harris is up +3 in a state that Trump won by +8 in 2016 and by +9 in 2020. 

And you are a barnacle. 

The election better markets have Trump up by +19 (as of noon EST, 11/5/24), and bettors don’t care if people are ashamed to admit who they’re voting for—they’re in it for the money and only the money.

And you are a barnacle. 

Mainstream pollsters have admitted to weighting their polls heavily in favor of Trump, to ensure they don’t end up with egg on their face like they did in 2016 and 2020 again. International whales are taking out huge bets in favor of Trump, swinging the markets, and right wing think tanks are flooding the zone with bullshit polls to artificially inflate Trump’s odds in the aggregate. And even if the popular vote is overwhelmingly for Harris, Trump’s team is already laying the narrative groundwork to support a Stop the Steal campaign that, by the time you read this, will likely already have started. 

All of that is true. 

And you are still a barnacle. 

You are not piloting the ship. You are not the captain of the ship. You are not laying out the potential courses the ship could take, you are not deciding which course the ship will take, you are not scouting ahead. 

You aren’t even a paying, ticket-holding passenger on the ship. You are a barnacle on the hull, deep underwater, and unfortunately, there isn’t really anything you can individually do to affect where this ship goes. Sorry! 

This isn’t an invitation to check out, or become apathetic, or (heaven forbid) embrace doomerism. Quite the opposite: this is a reminder of who you actually are in this entire scenario, of the power you do not have, and of the power you definitely do. 

After the 2016 election, some small part of myself was convinced I could change the outcome if I just posted hard enough. If I fought enough of my friends on Facebook, texted angrily, and tweeted from enough protests and rallies, somehow Trump would no longer be President-elect. 

All it did was, literally, give me a rash. I got so angry for so long that my skin started to break out in hives. A doctor friend more-than-half seriously prescribed that I “get the fuck off Facebook” until my skin returned to normal. Trump was still President-elect, the next 8 years happened the way they did, and here we are today. 

You’re going to hear a lot today: polls are tightening! Votes still aren’t in from this critical precinct! If these trends hold, then we can expect to know something by such-and-such a time! The race is as tight as can be! White supremacists are threatening violence to avenge a dead squirrel! 

(The squirrel thing is 100% real, and my god, I really wish I was joking.) 

Remember, through all of it, that you are not the captain of the ship. You are a barnacle on its hull, and there is very little you can personally do to change it at this point. You’ve already done all you can do—or maybe you haven’t, but even then, you’ve already done all you’re going to do. 

And as you stress, and consider how inebriated you’re going to get, and decide on which web pages you’ll be refreshing every thirty seconds, and stress out some more, remember too that Donald Trump hasn’t ever won the popular vote in his entire miserable life. He only won the electoral college, a racist system explicitly designed to empower slaveholders in southern states, one time, and ever since then, he has lost every election he’s declared for. 

More people did vote for the woman candidate the last time one ran for President, and more people have voted for the candidate of color than their opponent every single time a person of color has run for President on a major party ticket. 

And women have already made up a larger share of early voting than men in this, the first general election post-Dobbs, than ever before in American history. (53% women to 44% men.) 

So as you stress and consider your inebriates and say to yourself, “How can it possibly be this close?!” for the umpteenth time today, remember too that Donald Trump is a fascistic, deeply unpopular person (let alone President) backed by an even more deeply weird party, and that almost the entirety of your experience of this election is being filtered through the lens of a national, for-profit media that doesn’t care who wins, so long as you keep watching. 

Remember, you are not the captain of the ship, you are not the helmsman, you are not the map-maker. 

You are a barnacle. 

Vote for Harris, vote Democrat in your local and state races, and trust your other barnacles.

If you like this, consider signing up for my newsletter to get more writing from me right in your inbox the second it posts: sean-curry.com/signup

[cityofmeliora]

Help I'm somewhat new to the fandom WHO is Bishop Necropolitus and why is he shipped with Terzo I'm so fucking confused sorry😭😭😭 please give me all the lore I'm so lost I thought the whole fandom agreed that Terzomega was endgame

Bishop Necropolitus Cracoviensis II is an obscure canon Ghost character who represents Zbigniew Bielak, a Polish artist/architect who draws the album art for Ghost.

he is shipped with Terzo because his only official lore is him recalling the time he spent with Terzo in Kraków, where Terzo served as a cardinal. they had a lot of fun together, partying and studying. and Necropolitus has a lot of admiration and respect for Terzo and speaks of him very very fondly.

Bp. Necropolitus Cracoviensis remembers: “…our relationship goes a long way back to the times before his papacy, that is when he was still a cardinal in my hometown, in Cracovia…(…) Although we had our share of juvenile recklessness - be it indulging his beloved cream pies - allegedly verging on six hundred sixty six portions a year but that must be a rumor I believe, or wild parties at the attic of seminary school (laughs) - even in his formative years, he remained a focused man of vision, looking far into the future, always addressing his people’s needs and longings to keep our church together in those turbulent, rapidly changing times (…) there were so many temptations to syndicate among our good people (…) (…) We would sit down to studying exciting Futurist manifestos, sketched the blueprints of utopian metropoles, spiked with shiny skyscrapers stabbing at the heavens belly… Wantonly swollen zeppelins would to carry our gospel of indulgence to the farthest corners of the globe to summon and enslave. (…) Forged in nostalgia of steam and fire, this brave new world of ambition, vice, lust and greed - all so inherent to the enlightened modernity, was always with him through all these years. And it is now - when our church continues to grow stronger and wealthier under wise reign of Papa Emeritus III - that these visions may finally be witnessed and embraced in the preachings of ‘Meliora’ - his most contemporary and humane Encyclical.” (https://www.facebook.com/thebandghost/posts/994031900615606)

idk seems kinda gay :/

we don't know what he looks like. there are a few pictures of him at his work station, but all you can see is that he wears all black and wears black gloves. he seems to be fond of reptiles, having a taxidermied snake and an alligator head that he uses as a pen holder.

via Facebook / via Instagram

during Terzo's album era, Necropolitus was in Poland still serving as a bishop. and he still does the album art for Ghost.

that's all of the canon lore for Necropolitus.

[asexualjedi]

My mom passed away early this morning. She waited til after midnight bc she must have heard Robert talk about his bereavement policy and trying to figure out how he’d make the funeral since we’re not having it this weekend bc of Mother’s Day and everyone and their brother graduating. She. She had like a brain oxygen of like under 50 the past 3 to 4 days. She had such a healthy heart I guess. We had our differences and our struggles. And the relationship wasn’t the healthiest when I was like younger. But I recently found out more about her childhood which makes me think I. I think she truly was trying her best and it was a sort of cycle that I do think we were finally able to break at the end. But. I wish we could have broken it sooner I wish I had more time with her where my relationship wasn’t so complicated. But I’m glad we were able to fix it. Because like 8 years ago I didn’t think it was salvageable. I feel bad kinda dor saying all this negative stuff but. This is my blog and I’m never really going to say this stuff out loud or at least not until years and years have passed because it’s. It won’t be helpful for anyone to talk about it now except for me and I can talk about it here if I need to. I’m glad we were able to have a happy relationship at the end and I’m really going to miss her. I really wish I could have had one last big hug. I gave her a lot of hugs but just because of how Alzheimer’s is. I… I don’t really remember when the last time was that she gave me a big hug. I gave her a lot of hugs and. I think maybe 2 or 3 weeks ago she was able to. Give me a hug or. Receive it better then by the end when she was bed bound. You truly never know sometimes when something is going to be the last. And. I wish I had so I could have put it to memory better. I’m sad she didn’t get to see my graduate. But. It’s not for a lack of trying she lasted a good week longer than any of the doctors expected. And she got to see me graduate college for all that I didn’t want to go to graduation. I’m glad I did. Because I didn’t know then that she was sick yet. She really gave up a lot for me and my brothers and I wish I had a chance to know her better when she was alive and more present I guess? But the stuff I learned was stuff she never talked about and my dad only learned from some of her close friends who’ve known her from when she was like in elementary school. And you never fully know a person truly. And I did get to know her better but there are somethings I was never able to ask or talk to her about because of this. But I did enjoy our time together and I’ll miss her a lot. Looking through her phone and old stuff and I never really realized I guess how much she supported my art and the things I did. She only had like 4 or 5 Facebook icons ever and 2 of them were shitty little paintings I did. She posted all my art when I drew all the supernatural characters like comic characters and when I drew a bunch of comics and anime shit she didn’t know a thing about she’d post it and take photos and she hated supernatural because of all the violence. But. She was a good mom. I think all and all. And I’m going to miss her so much and be sad she never had the chance to become a great mom bc I think she could have been one of the best out there. I always thought it was crazy she had eyes everywhere in school when I was growing up something would happen and she’d hear about it before I got home. She always wanted to watch and take care of us and know she’s got the biggest bird’s eye view imaginable to watch over us with. I hope she understands how much I love and want she meant to me.

[ancat-dubh]

A friend died a few weeks ago and I dreamed about him last night. I say friend – he was my boss at my first bartending job when I was 18, and for a few years after that at the theatre where we both acted, did the box office, and served drinks. That was a big transformative period of my life, though, and a lot of the grown-ups around me then – charismatic actors living out of their suitcases, often in addiction, doing some of the greatest art I’ll ever see, also my first dose of queer elders – have had an outsized lasting influence in my life.

He was a friend in my mind, even though we mostly only exchanged birthday messages and pleasantries when I was in town or, once, a black-out drunken run-in at the dive bar where he didn’t recognise me, but smiled and pirouetted me on my way to the bathroom. He was a strange, intense poet who’d won Jeopardy one year, given it all away, and tried and tried to make it work as an actor. He drank more as he got older, and his frequent Facebook posts got angrier, lonelier, occasionally blaming unnamed women for the pain he was in; his spot-on range of accents, sleepy gentle bookseller’s regard, and ability to flick into uncanny, ecstatic states onstage in an instant stayed the same.

He’d grown up in the Green Mountains, and it was there I was driving to see him in my dream. I’d been late getting up to meet him; we’d planned to get a drink at the bar in the town where his mother lived. We were having a text exchange while I drove, the kind you sometimes have in dreams where everything’s shaky and the buttons aren’t working and the conversation’s high stakes. (Or maybe you don’t have those – it’s been a while since I’ve dreamed regularly, years, maybe, but I’ve had a few these past few weeks). After getting tired of waiting for me, he’d gone off to a local environmental demo in support of a rare species of snake. While he was there, a counter-protestor had lit the forest on fire; he was texting me images and videos of the fire, of himself yelling and shouting trying to direct the firefighters, alongside downloaded images of the rare snake they were there to save. Are you okay? I was trying to ask as I drove further up the Mountains towards his house. I stared at the image of the snake bouncing in my lap while I waited for his reply – yellow belly, iridescent black body blazing a dull rainbow.

I haven’t been a ~visual artist dahling since about age 16 and I shan’t pretend to be so it surprised me how much the automatic drawing I did tonight to charge my quarter of our Imbolc ritual looked as it did on the phone in my dream. It looked, too, like the banner my friend and I painted together in the dream when we both arrived at his house safely – him smoky and tired, me out of breath from my anxious drive, cracking open a few beers and an old bedsheet and almost wordlessly painting the snake against the smouldering woods together to hang on his wall. It didn’t occur to me he was dead until after I woke up, but when I remembered the overall feeling of relief, contentment, ease in my body remained alongside grief.

I slowly worked some protection magic into a snake drawing tonight doing a little improvised ritual digesting after our feast (Guinness and honey glazed salmon, my v non-tradish version of colcannon, cheese platter with dried apricots, clotted cream and madeleines). After two of us left, my friend who was hosting and I made our own sketches of snakeskins with intentions and offerings written between the scales, and burned them while pouring out some libations to the ancestors and local gods. I thought about one story of Brigid, particular to Scotland, where the goddess emerges from the ground as a snake to start the spring; snakes fleeing fires through canyons and across hot asphalt in LA; the quiet, tactical prudence of the Wood Snake and the days-old Chinese New Year.

It occurred to me once or twice too, as I thought about my dead friend’s insistence on sending me this image of a snake, of all things, burning vibrant and don’t-touch-me colourful over a pine forest sparking into flames – I’m scared of snakes. Ever since I was four years old, and nearly stepped on a baby copperhead wriggling across my path while I walked barefoot through a dusty summer meadow. But this one felt like so much of a Sign showing up the way he did, I felt like I knew him already; there was no question of being afraid. God is change, I wrote on my paper sketched snakeskin; my friend and I wound ours together and set them alight and they burned right through into a perfect circle of black ash, so perfect and simultaneous we both shrieked and clapped our hands. (I’d had us read some of the maxims in Parable of the Sower for our ritual – I’d started rereading it the other week with images of the LA fires echoing in my brain and had to stop because the whole thing was a little too real and relentless and my brain’s only a few weeks out from feeling like a sharp trap). Spring’s not here yet but the change is here already. I thought of the snake-goddess sticking her head from her winter burrow, tongue tasting the air to confirm – yes. We’re in it; it’s here.

[gearbox-doll]

I think what most antis don't understand is that I've been like this my whole life. I drew Celestia × Luna kissing during class in elementary school. I had a duplo lego set with a pair of minifigs who I immediately decided were a) siblings and b) dating. Related to that one, there is a post on my mother's Facebook account from once I was old enough to play with regular lego where I had been looking for (and successfully found) one of those red 1×1 tubes and exclaimed "Oh, there it is! There's my other bottle of blood!". I watched Tinkerbell: Secret of the Wings and immediately assumed that them healing Tink's wings was because the sisters loved each other romantically, the intended message of "familial love is just as strong as romantic love" going right over my head. I couldn't have been more than eight. Hell, I shipped Dora and Diego from Dora The Explorer and I was fully aware they were cousins, it just didn't occur to me that that was weird.

And it's not like I was taught about these things by someone, either. Especially the Tinkerbell one, I don't think I had internet access of any kind at that age. Even once I did, all I did until I was like ten was watch silly fnaf meme videos and doll unboxings on YouTube. I didn't even fully understand the lore, I just knew the robots were alive and wanted to be friends with them.

I only read smut once, a Mangle × Springtrap fic on Wattpad that I had zero context for, and was immediately disgusted because my attitude was "ew sex gross". I only read it because I had heard some older kids talking about smut in a fandom context and was super excited that I didn't have to ask my mom anymore (I'd just gotten my first working phone). I didn't go back to smut until I was like 14, because I was experiencing arousal for the first time and all of a sudden all the stuff in that fic that seemed gross to 10yo me seemed really appealing.

No one taught me that incest was okay, or gore, or anything. It was just something my child brain thought up and I never thought it important enough to mention. I learned later to hide the art I drew because my parents might be upset, but they were upset I had gay fanart on my phone, so what did they know about what relationships were acceptable?

I wasn't taught that incest was even a thing that existed for a long time, and certainly no one ever had a conversation with me about it, they just picked up on me knowing what the word meant at some point after I'd figured it out online. I knew what murder was (my mom watched cop shows), but I don't remember where I ever came across the concept of a business that ran machines fueled by blood (which was what the "bottle of blood" thing was about, iirc), it might've just been something I thought up on my own. I wasn't ashamed of these things until I was older, I just never mentioned it because I didn't think it was relevant to anything.

[smokingcreams]

Re: 8tracks

WARNING:

As many of you know the past weeks I've been giving you updates about what's happening with 8tracks and if you read my last post you know I said that the last thing "the CTO of 8tracks" said was that he'll have a meeting with the CEO to talk about the plans they have to secure a funding. Well, 11 days since that happened, days where the ones who joined the server asked too some questions and concerns about recovering our data, about why they haven't post any of the information they gave us in the 8tracks official sites (twitter, tumblr, their blog, instagram, facebook) and yet we didn't get any response, not about the meeting neither answers to those mentioned questions and if you want me to be more specific he appeared two times these last 11 days, one to say "Hi" and that he was sick and the other day he appeared (yesterday) was to say again "Hi all" and that he'll reply to us "today" but again, nothing happened.

As you can see, this situation made angry to lot of the users who joined that server but mostly we're disappointed for the attitude of this man Antonio Meic who calls himself the CTO of 8tracks and how he is managing this server, he literally put the link to a telegram gc and a discord server and so far he just answered one time since I joined. We're not only worried about losing our data (he basically said we could lose our data forever if their plan with this MixerFM app fails) but we're also worried about this whole crypto thing (we all know how that works) and about their lack of communication, something that they have been doing since the bought 8tracks from David Porter and co in 2020.

When I saw the post of @tumbling-and-tchaikovsky weeks ago I was really excited and had hope there was a chance to bring back 8tracks but after some weeks in that server I can certainly say that all we had in this time are more doubts and questions than clear answers, I kinda feel scammed AND BECAUSE OF THIS REASON IS THAT I'M ALSO POSTING THIS, NOT ONLY TO TELL YOU WE SHOULDN'T TRUST THIS MAN/GROUP OF PEOPLE BUT ALSO TO NOT DONATE ANYTHING IF THEY EVER ASK US TO DO THAT.

Finally, I would like to say that I'll keep continue with the updates of whatever this "CTO" tells us but please, let's take with a grain of salt everything he says, we don't trust him and you shouldn't either.

P.D. = Our main goal right now is to find a way that everyone recovers their data so if any of you would like to help us with that join that server but not as fans who want to donate or help them with the launching of that MixerFM app, join the discord server to pressure him to give us our data, it's our right and we deserve the access to our information one way or another but remember too we need to be smart, don't be agressive but neither passive.

Keep tagging few people who were discussing about this:

@junket-bank, @haorev, @americanundead, @eatpandulce, @throwupgirl, @avoid-avoidance, @rodeokid, @shehungthemoon, @promostuff-art @tumbling-and-tchaikovsky

#8tracks

[dalimarisdaddy1967]

Continuation of my last post...

In my last post I showed my new profile picture and mentioned that I found it on a post on the Facebook for GrandMA Studios. I wanted to elaborate further on that and discuss some theories I have surrounding that so without further ado, let's get into that. There may be mild spoilers ahead so be advised...

The post reads: 'Dear MCF fans, especially those who love the story of Charles and Emma. We have prepared a little fan art to please you! Perhaps there is a universe in which Charles is not an evil genius at all and he has a chance for Emma's mutual love?'

Now let's dive into some theories I have on this... I find it interesting and kinda weird that the official Facebook for the current developers of the series to mark this image as 'fan art'. Fan art?! Excuse me?! I don't think this is fan art at all. I think this is a teaser image for a future game. Notice how it's torn in half?! That looks like something that could show up in a game. Maybe Charles or Emma ripped it?

They hint at alternate universes as well which could be a call back to what the Detective caused in Dalimar Legacy with the changing of history. I also remember at the end of Dalimar Legacy that Charles says something along the lines of 'perhaps there's a universe where I won.' I've only played it once so forgive me if I'm misremembering.

I know at the end of Dalimar Legacy Charles gets sent back to the asylum but he always finds a way to come back somehow. He's done it so many times and if there are multiple timelines out there now because of the Detective messing with things, then it could be possible for him to come back. Also with this image, it's possible there's a timeline where he was good and got to live a happy life with Emma and didn't kill her.

I have more theories surrounding this but I'm gonna save those for some other posts because I have more fun little tidbits to share so stayed tuned!

@detectiveruth @masterdetectivemcf @macatt4c @fallenidol-453 @redrum-eht @hakurakurohime @proustianlesbian @thebiggestpartypooper @rebellovesthings @artsydon @hiddenobject-fanblog @pookiethebloodsucker @apeirotilio @ink-and-pixels @arty-girl-asks @angelsmama1968

[art-res]

I’m just getting into digital art and I’m not sure what to do re tablets. Can you use them with laptops? That’s the only kind of computer I have.. I heard Cintiq and Wacom are good brands? Sorry for this rambling question, and please ignore me if you have answered this before, thank you very much for such a helpful blog

Hey, no worries at all! Your question is a great one. I remember when I first started in the digital art world, and I had the same questions.

Yes you can absolutely use drawing tablets with laptops. That is how most of them work, all you need is a USB port to connect the tablet to your laptop, and you're good to go. Some newer tablets even offer Bluetooth connectivity, so you can go completely wireless if your laptop supports it.

Wacom is great! Cintiq is its more expensive line, where you can draw directly on the screen. I don't own one due to price, but I do use an iPad Air 4th generation and like it a lot. I have used Wacoms without screens and they are great, your hand eye coordination will get used to it. I've also used cheaper brands like xp-pen, and liked them a lot. Specifically, the Deco 03 (see my review here: Drawing Tablet Review: XP-PEN Deco 03) and the display screen artistul d12s (didn't review, got tired lol. It's good though!) . Honestly, for portability, I love to take my iPad on the go. But the tablets let you use more powerful drawing software and the ease of keyboard shortcuts, so honestly I'd try to test drive the products out.

Another thing I did when deciding which model to buy was exploring tons of reddit threads and asking around on art related chats lol.

Don't worry about rambling; we all start somewhere, and it's better to ask and get the info you need, as the options out there can be overwhelming.

Hope this helps!

Wrote a lil guide to  digital art that you might be interested in.

Recent Posts / More Useful Links

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[neiderflyer]

everyday i remember gay angrybirds knowledge i have w no way to backup bc it wasnt saved/i cant find it now. u have to believe me

scrapped concept art from the agri birds game that had like.. stella and gale in the back of a house ? and they were KISSING. the pic was in black and white i think i could recreate it from memory but im dying to find it again someday 😭😭😭 the source of that also had concept art of hals (sasha?) design in that game

maybe i could find this one if i tried harder but for valentines 2017 they reposted one of my stella/gale drawings w the caption "a time for gals to be pals"

in mid 2018 i got an ask on my old tumblr asking where they could find lgbt angry birds art and i showed them but also asked what its for and they said theyre an angry birds intern (?) looking for art for a pride art showcase and sure enough they DID share tons of fanart for pride like a month later

the only non lesbirds one on here but innn 2016-2017 on twitter they shared fanart of chred with fankids. imagine if that happened rn everyone would lose it. even funnier was like. they didnt retweet the artist. no they saved the fanart, posted it themselves, but edited in a frame advertising one of the games at the time??? why use gay fankid art LMAO

this one post from angrybirds stella facebook (? i think) that was just official art of stella and gale eating cake but no celebration was stated. until you look at the day it was posted and it was the exact day that gay marriage was legalized in the united states

[wickedki]

Espresso Yourself...Then Run

Modern romance is a lot like modern art---some of it is wildly confusing, most of it is overpriced, and occasionally you stand there wondering, is this a joke I’m not in on?

I matched with a guy on a dating app---because of course I did. The algorithm whispered, “This one might not be terrible,” and when the bar is that low, I decided to listen.

After a few decent exchanges (read: he used punctuation and didn’t open with “u up?”), I suggested we meet. He agreed, told me to pick the place, and I chose one of my favorite cozy Italian spots with a solid bar and even better lighting. Familiar turf. A safe space. A place where the bartender knows my go-to cocktail and the bathroom mirror is kind to your makeup after a good cry.

I got there early---because showing up late in heels is a war I’ve already lost before---and ordered an espresso martini to steady my nerves. I was in a miniskirt, my hair perfectly curled like the goddess I sometimes remember I am, and my expectations were cautiously optimistic.

And then...he walked in.

He looked different. Not catfish-level different...more like “I just rolled out of a barstool and into this date” different. His photos had clearly been taken in the Before Times. The pre-whatever-happened-to-his-dental-situation times. Which I only noticed once he opened his mouth to greet me and---surprise!---no front teeth.

Now, I’m not one to be superficial. Really, I’m not. But when you spend an hour on your hair and contour like your future husband might walk in, a toothless grin can shake you.

Still, I stayed. Because I’m kind. Because I’m curious. Because my espresso martini was already halfway gone.

He ordered a beer. Then another. And another. I nursed my cocktail while he launched into a detailed tirade about his coworker. Something about how much money he made, how everyone around him was an idiot, how no one appreciated his genius.

I don’t think I spoke for forty-five minutes.

At one point---buzzed and clinging to optimism---I tried to make light of the dental mystery. “So...do you play hockey?” I asked, hoping maybe this was a rugged, athletic thing. Maybe he lost them in a bar fight over the Stanley Cup?

He didn’t laugh. He also didn’t play hockey.

Eventually, the date ended. He paid for my drink---small miracles. And as I got into my car, I did something I should have done before the miniskirt, before the martini, before the menu.

I looked him up.

And just like that, any ounce of guilt I felt for judging his lack of enamel vanished. His Facebook was a hate parade. Anti-women posts, sexist rants, and comments so offensive they could get you canceled in any timeline.

I sent a polite “thanks for the drink” and blocked him before he could say another word.

And as I sat there in my car, hair still fabulous, dignity slightly bruised, "I couldn’t help but wonder…" (I love. you, Carrie Bradshaw!)

When did dating become a battle between red flags and blind optimism?

Sometimes, it’s dodged in a dimly lit bar over a bitter espresso martini and a missing tooth.

Either way, I’m learning.

And next time...I’m Googling first.

[toxooz]

The canvases aren’t even safe 😭 they used the Boroque era as reference for their search engines. Like I’m losing my shit constantly over ai art so bad. Like this is totally gonna be a rant so forgive me but it’s driving up the WALLS. Ai art being readily available is killing the incentive for people to be creative. I cannot tell you how many times I think I’ve found a really cool fellow artist on tiktok and then see #midjourney. I take psychic damage every time that happens to me. And I’m starting to see it infiltrating business too where they generate ai images instead of hire photographers. I also saw someone selling tshirts with ai art on it at my local farmers market. MOTHERFUCKER THE FARMERS MARKET??? HAVE YOU NO SHAME????

NAW PREACH IT cause its become a nagging issue for me for a while that i simply try to not think about and dwell on but dear FUCKING god is it everywhere and it's painfully obvious too! just about every ad takes me 3 seconds to find damning evidence that its ai and im 99% ready to just delete facebook bc #1 i dont give a fuck abt anyone on there anymore and #2 Literally every other post is the most deplorable ai shit ive ever seen that everyone is carelessly oblivious to i mean total abominations that don't make any sense as an image but ppl share bc its the most bottom of the barrel ''relatable'' shit and that's just the sad reality of it is most people don't even give a shit what they're looking at as long as it looks pretty to their eyes for 3 seconds they don't give a damn

and that's just on basic everyday world shit like u said there's so many mfs i think are decent artists where i legitimately cant tell its ai until i read their fuckshit bio or somethin, like that midjourney i didnt even know it was an ai program i would've just thought it was the name of a video game or some shit! like I feel like I'm kinda turning my back on the whole art community involuntarily bc i just dont trust any image i see most of the time and its fukkin sad i ESPECIALLY feel for the real artists prior to this shitshow who have art styles that now look so much like ai that they basically hijacked to feed the machine like I couldn't imagine spending thousands of dollars on an art college and hours of practice just for your art style to be The Blueprint for empty soulless photos cranked out at inhuman rates by any stupid fucking lazy ass clown like Fuck Man it all sucks so much and the worst part is I just feel like it's one of those things where it will not stop until Something caves and i honestly dont know which one it will be but i just know its only going to get worse idk i try to remember that i can pick up a paintbrush or even whatever the hell i want and make something beautiful while 98% of these ai sacks of shit are just limited to stealing other peoples art on the internet and they couldn't even paint a damn flower if their lives depended on it and if i was stuck on a deserted island I'd probably still find ways to make art with whatever tools and resources i have cause that's an artist baybay but as far as The Internet and its grasp it has on the world and trying to make it as a digital artist and trying to make money from your homemade artwork is very grim man and dont even get me started on art and artists in just about every job field rn my heart goes out to them

[cityofmeliora]

I'm so lost, who is necropolitus and which part of the lore is he from-

i'm starting to feel like i should just pin the Necropolitus lore post because it seems like i need to answer this question every week.. anyway,

Bishop Necropolitus Cracoviensis II is an obscure canon Ghost character who represents Zbigniew Bielak, a Polish artist/architect who draws the album art for Ghost.

he is shipped with Terzo because his only official lore is him recalling the time he spent with Terzo in Kraków, where Terzo served as a cardinal. they had a lot of fun together, partying and studying. and Necropolitus has a lot of admiration and respect for Terzo and speaks of him very very fondly.

Bp. Necropolitus Cracoviensis remembers: “…our relationship goes a long way back to the times before his papacy, that is when he was still a cardinal in my hometown, in Cracovia…(…) Although we had our share of juvenile recklessness - be it indulging his beloved cream pies - allegedly verging on six hundred sixty six portions a year but that must be a rumor I believe, or wild parties at the attic of seminary school (laughs) - even in his formative years, he remained a focused man of vision, looking far into the future, always addressing his people’s needs and longings to keep our church together in those turbulent, rapidly changing times (…) there were so many temptations to syndicate among our good people (…) (…) We would sit down to studying exciting Futurist manifestos, sketched the blueprints of utopian metropoles, spiked with shiny skyscrapers stabbing at the heavens belly… Wantonly swollen zeppelins would to carry our gospel of indulgence to the farthest corners of the globe to summon and enslave. (…) Forged in nostalgia of steam and fire, this brave new world of ambition, vice, lust and greed - all so inherent to the enlightened modernity, was always with him through all these years. And it is now - when our church continues to grow stronger and wealthier under wise reign of Papa Emeritus III - that these visions may finally be witnessed and embraced in the preachings of ‘Meliora’ - his most contemporary and humane Encyclical.” (https://www.facebook.com/thebandghost/posts/994031900615606)

idk seems kinda gay :/

we don't know what he looks like. there are a few pictures of him at his work station, but all you can see is that he wears all black and wears black gloves. he seems to be fond of reptiles, having a taxidermied snake and an alligator head that he uses as a pen holder.

via Facebook / via Instagram

during Terzo's album era, Necropolitus was in Poland still serving as a bishop. and he still does the album art for Ghost.

that's all of the canon lore for Necropolitus.

[spirits-and-sluts]

For the ask meme, 5 and 28?

I don't think that's silly! Bc honestly making sideblogs is so high stakes for me in the first place, and honestly it's a funny story, so I joined Tumblr in high school, I think I'd seen a bunch of Tumblr screenshots on Pinterest and like, Facebook, first so I wanted to get in on all the memes and shit. I was restroom-pizza for years, and I don't remember exactly where on the timeline I made dirty-droids but after I got into dbh, I made a group chat for Hankcon that was 18+ and started making friends. It was my first time really being social with fandom online, I'd only ever lurked before.

Then I started roleplaying and that inspired me to write fic and somewhere in there I made my dbh sideblog so I could make more friends and get more attention 😅 I wanted to be a big fandom name, idk if I ever got there. But I tried making art for a second there (it was a lot of tracing reference images) and I posted Connor ass of my own exactly once and got my whole account nuked. So when I remade my Tumblr, I made Dirty-droid my main and made my general fandom blog a side blog instead so I could fandom as hard as I could (mostly just so I could reply to posts without looking like a completely different person)

The second question is do I collect anything, and honestly? I don't know 😅 not purposely anymore, I used to get a lot of little figurine statues of like, cats and dogs and horses because my grandma knew I liked them, but I guess it's all more touch and go these days. Money is tight, but me and my fiance tried to start collecting rainbow high dolls, but only got like, four dolls 😅 we do get art things here and there to cover the walls and I like those, but other than that?? ... Debt? 🫣😬😅

I'll try and post some pictures of how we've decorated the house here soon, I'm actually really proud of it.

Thank you so much for asking!

[tachyonmemories]

Is there a place where i can get every illustration done by wayne barlowe? asking this before shitty ai art takes over and makes it hard to look for his legit works.

I honestly doubt there's any single place where you can find all his art. He's been my favorite artist for pretty much as long as I can remember and I still find pieces from him I've never seen before. Best I can do is point you in a couple different directions:

-His website is probably the best single location to find his work. Well organized, high-res scans and still gets an update every couple years.

-Weirdly, he is very active on LinkedIn. I think he posts all his new art there and you can easily "right click -> save as... " his posts instead of having to get some kind of 3rd-party plugin to download what he posts on instagram. To my knowledge, those are his only active socials and that's where you can find his new work. He may have a facebook page, but I haven't used facebook in years.

-If you go through torrent sites you can find high-res scans of a lot of his art from the "Barlowe's Guide" era up until about 2010ish. I think RUtracker is where I found a pretty thorough collection.

-His really early work- book covers and such- is pretty hard to track down. @70sscifiart and similar accounts occasionally post pulp covers by him from super early in his career but I seriously doubt they've been collected in one place. If they have, I don't know about it.

I think that's the extent of my knowledge. If you want to buy his physical books they're usually pretty pricey so either save up for pray for a deal. The only exception I think is Alphabet of Dinosaurs which you can normally get for a steal and which I highly recommend picking up.

Hope that helps! If I think of more resources, I'll come back and add them. Here are some weird Barlowe pieces I don't see in circulation too often:

[gddancefloor]

rant about original content on this hellhole and why I can't stand the expectations to make fan art

If Tumblr is a more fandom oriented website, then I'm curious as to where I should post original content. Short-form posting spaces like Twitter or Bluesky don't work for how long I like to type and I prefer doing text effects, Instagram is my fucking opp I've hated insta since I was a kid /hj, and uh... That's all I know. I don't know anyone my age who uses Facebook so that's a no as well.

I am using a newer platform for OCs but it's relatively new and yeah, it could be better. Tumblr is a very cozy website for me to use especially with the lack of drama and weirdness (although some people's takes make me wince on here like woah buddy that's borderline extremism) but people genuinely don't give a shit about what I do unless it's fan art.

I got sick of making fan art and fan content because it made me tired and I felt detached from myself. I don't even mean this in a chronically online way — art is an extension of myself and to constantly be doing something that isn't linked to me felt draining. Yeah sure wahwah TCPS is cool or whatever but I don't want to just work on that. My newer projects have been made to help me cope with a severely abusive relationship I underwent last year. I don't want to disappoint the people who enjoy my work but... I can't do just one thing forever. I will take breaks. Nothing is permanently cancelled when it comes to me. (That is, unless it had associations to a traumatic incident, like KochiPET.)

I want to share my hard work with people online, but I get tired of it only being to my small circle of friends. I miss getting a hundred likes on art but I remember it's for fan art, nothing original. This is even worse as an autistic person that just can't seem to get hyperfixations anymore. Not sure what happened but there has been a dramatic change in my brain chemistry since I got depression and COVID. The abuse damaged how I felt about sharing my interests because he would always belittle me about how I liked something and would instead make me consume something he liked instead. It was terrible.

So since then I haven't really... Fixated on media anymore. It could be that nothing is interesting anymore since the rise of AI, or that nothing worthwhile has crossed my path, but without a fixation, I don't give a fuck to make fan made media. The only fixation I have right now is on my own projects, and while I'm happy to have one, this is a massive issue for wanting to get my stuff recognized.

I'm not really angry as I'm writing this, more so just neutral. It's annoying, because I do see some OC work on here getting thousands. It's most definitely not an issue with my designs or writing though, because I've gotten compliments on my work since I was 10 (back in the amino days). So, whatever it is, perhaps it's being shadowbanned or being disliked by the system, it makes me pretty annoyed smh

[thenightling]

In a Facebook Over the garden Wall group that I am in, I posted about how the new Dungeons and Dragons module "Night of the Crooked Moon" is just Over the Garden Wall through a Dungeons and Dragons filter. I provided two youtube links, one of which showed the concept art, which is strikingly similar to the Oer the Garden Wall concept art. I quoted the narration which is virtually identical except for five words slightly changed. (i.e. "Clouded" swapped with "shrouded"). But someone named Jason Nesbitt was quick to dismiss the similarity as coincidence since both used Americana and The Blasting Company music. It was frustrating because he acted like I wasn't familiar with folklore, American folk art, or the vintage Hallowe'en, Thanksgiving, and Christmas postcards that inspired Over the Garden Wall. It's more than just that... This is something I hate about Facebook. Far too many people skim posts and don't read them properly before commenting and it wastes a lot of time. It becomes talking "at" someone instead of talking "to" someone. Here's what I said back to him.

"Maybe you should have read my post all the way through instead of skimming and leaping to conclusions, it's frustratingly obvious you only skimmed the post and were eager to be dismissive of it. Now I ask you to have enough consideration to read this slowly, at least the next three paragraphs.

This line here is NOT Americana: ****"Somewhere lost in the shrouded realms of death lies a realm of endless night where long forgotten horrors are revealed to those who travel through the mist."****

It only changes about five words from "Somewhere, lost in the clouded annals of history, Lies a place called The Unknown. Where long forgotten stories are revealed to those who travel through the wood."

Allow me to pluck out the similarities. The part in brackets is what is changed. "Somewhere lost in the (clouded / shrouded) (Realms / Annals) of (Death / History) lies a (Place / realm) (of Endless Night / Called The Unknown) where long forgotten (horrors / stories) are revealed to those who travel through (the mist / the wood)."

There's only five changes in the entire quote! That quote is not Americana.

Also watch the play through that is up on Youtube. They even use the black train that originally was going to be the opening of Over the Garden Wall with the implication that it's carrying the main characters to the afterlife and they don't know how they got there. That was the original planned opening sequence for Over the Garden Wall. The black steam train being what is carrying them between life and death was an invention of Over The Garden Wall, not a feature of seventeenth through early twentieth century American folklore.

Not only does it, yes, use the same Americana but it's the America AFTER it had been filtered through Patrick McHale's stylizing as you will notice most of Over the Garden Wall is visually based on vintage Hallowe'en, Thanksgiving, and Christmas postcards from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. But this uses the visuals after they had been stylized by Patrick McHale's imagining.

Outside of the aesthetic there is also the main plot. The characters don't quite remember how they got to this surreal place and are trying to find their way home while The Beast preys on those that lose their way and hope and is a known threat lurking in the woods. And that Beast happens to be a combo Windigo / Erling.

Did you even look at the concept art or you were just eager to think I'm speaking about coincidences and don't know the origin of what's in Over the Garden Wall? I can dismiss the Jack-o-lantern maypole with the tendril sashes (because that has appeared in early twentieth century Hallowe'en postcards) but the dog-creature and even how its eyes are drawn is virtually identical to the one from the first episode of Over the Garden Wall. That was not Americana. That was an original creation for over the Garden Wall.

This is no coincidence.

You shouldn't have been so quick to assume I don't know Americana. I'm an armchair folklorist. I know what was original and what was reconstituted through Patrick McHale's imagination. You should have actually checked out what I was saying before commenting. Not only was it rude and dismissive but it made clear that YOU don't know the difference between what was original homespun lore and what was Americana in Over the Garden Wall."