#also i never posted any of these arts on twitter so!!! exclusive tumblr art!!!

[theendofuno]

ehmmm its almost 3 am and im getting deadly overwhelmed so ill just. write about my ordem paranormal au and pretend someone will actually read it lol

first of all i’d like to explain that it’s an au from a brazilian tabletop rpg game but i’ll try to translate the terms and etc in the best way i can, it’s an universe that happens in real world, except that there’s...paranormal.. lol

ok so them

i like to use he/they for him but yk yk just he/him is also fine 

(they’re 15-16ish here just to clarify)

they’re an occultist who got caught by ordem (an organization that fights against the paranormal, occultists are people who work with the paranormal in a “positive” way, to make it stronger and just fuck up the world lol), especifically by Grandark who is a real human here ‘cause oh my god his human design is SO COOL why kog dont use ittt, but Gran just didn’t “feel right” by arresting a child so he just 

“oh well do you want to be my son” 

“no” 

“alright idc you’ll be anyway”

Uno is a VERY annoying asshole teen, he likes to bother people on purpose, he also steals A LOT of food as a coping mechanism for his past trauma living on the streets and just having to deal with the paranormal with such a young age, he also have some trusting issues, so he don’t really have a good relationship with Grandark or Zero (who lived with Grandark even before Uno’s arrive but that’s history for another day *wink wink) and don’t really pretend to like them, but deeeeep down on his feelings he likes them

that’s his clothings!!!

his shirt is stolen from Grandark, The Pression is a 1980-1990 band (that actually exists on the ordem universe lol) and Uno is completely clueless, he just wanted some red shirt, his crocs are stolen from Zero 

their second clothes are his work clothes! he work at a flower shop with Ryan (who’s 17-18ish), they’re not very... a good seller if i can say?? theyre always with the ‘-’ expression and dont really care to learn about the flowers to yk... sell them...??? theyre just “yeah go ask Ryan” 

Ryan tho is very patient and really likes Uno and is always trying to make him care about and learn more and just feel comfortable in general

their hair is naturally black, but they got the white parts with his affinity (it’s when the other side a.k.a the paranormal chooses you and makes you more paranormal than human, he have blood affinity) and the blue part is dyed by Grandark

Uno also know A LOT of occultist rituals, having it tattoed on his body

he have this one on his hand!!! (just for his gc actual tattoo lol), the ritual is the black part but Hwarin (who have a similar story of messing with the paranormal in a young age and working with ordem instead of getting arrested) thought it would be cool to do a drawing above it, at first Uno absolutely hated it but now he just “hehe :) dragon”

this ritual symbol is called “Descarnar” and im kinda unsure on how to translate it but it’s somewhat in the likes of “Getting Fleshless”, which... yeah! removes your skin and makes you bleed A LOT

he also have a giant other ritual symbol on his chest which he removed with the same descarnar ritual because it was craved on him and he didn’t really..had a choice or consentment on getting it, i didnt really think when he got his neck tattoo but yeah it exists as well 

also his eye thing isn’t a tattoo, it’s actually makeup (eyeliner) he learned with Asin who does a ✨glamurous✨ eyeliner everyday (also Asin and Jin are like 25?? not quite sure about an official age but they’re more old than canon)

he used to go on missions with Veigas but they were prohibited of staying together alone after...an accident...where they kept using rituals on each other until Veigas back was completely in raw meat and Uno had third degree burns [since Veigas is an energy occultist]), so now he usually goes with Ryan and Lass (who is 18 but he’s kinda childish as a coping mech- i wont talk about other characters today ok i promised that to myself), since Grandark is uhh “top tier” is the best term i can think of now on ordem so newbies can’t go with Gran’s team (which is consisted of Grandark, Werner, Grandiel, Baldinar, Serdin & Kanavan. wowie a bunch of homossexuals) (Peter was part of it but he’s retired)

also a fun fact he’s a dog person (in canon i think he would be more a cat person but yk yk au) and he used to call zombies as dogs, and he once tried to convince Grandark on getting a dog and,,,,,,,,he came home with an alligator,,,,,,,,,, ain’t he so silly

#not really daily uno but also not-not uno related #again lmao sorry for these kind of posts #also i never posted any of these arts on twitter so!!! exclusive tumblr art!!!

[godbirdart]

You don’t have to answer this question as it’s probably dumb to ask…but do you know what platform(s) would be a good starting point? Particularly for original content rather then fanart? I heard deviantart is a good place where alot of ppl got there start on but there’s lots of art thrives and such.

don't even worry, it's not dumb at all! it's hard to gauge where to Begin in the vast hellscape that is the online world. i do get this question [and some adjacent questions] often so please allow me to use your ask as an excuse to post a few of my site rankings for various art things!!

for reference, these are the sites I'll be addressing because i have used them at some point within the last year. please note: my information on Cohost and Itaku specifically may be out of date as I haven't used them in a long while. naturally, this is all solely my perspective. i run both a furry/original content account and an anime/fanart account on most of these sites and run them reasonably independently from one another. these rankings are based on how well each account fares on each site.

I will be talking about Patreon and Ko-Fi as if people will only be posting paywalled content there. you Can publicly post on both sites, but for the sake of this post i'm only going to treat them as paywalled sites since well, that's kind of their purpose.

POSTING ART IN GENERAL

the A-tier list sites here are the ones that are most practical, with a decent member presence and little to no algorithms impairing your reach. the only sites here with any sort of algorithm are tumblr and deviantart, but i feel they don't ruin your reach that much.

B-tier list is mostly centered around popularity. there are massive audiences on both masto and twitter. twitter can be really good if you're posting certain content. mastodon has countless instances [read: servers / subdomains, however you want to call them] that can help narrow down an audience and like-minded people. for example, i use mastodon.art whereas many furries may use meow.social. you Can be discovered by people on other servers than yours.

C-tier has been sorted in accordance to audience. this is solely in my experience, but not a lot of new people are flocking to cohost and itaku. we also just hate facebook in this house and i will never give a facebook products a high rating.

F-tier: if you are a new or growing artist, putting your art behind a paywall or making it a chat platform exclusive thing can really hinder your growth. you can still do this of course, but you won't get as many eyes on your work as you would on a public gallery. threads is there solely due to privacy issues that Cannot be overlooked. i will not recommend it.

POSTING ORIGINAL CONTENT / CHARACTERS / NON-FANWORKS

here's how i'd grade these sites for posting Original content, characters, stories, etc. your best sites will likely be furaffinity, deviantart, and tumblr. i've put these three here for their tag use, discoverability, and audience presence. tumblr can be a little glitchy with its tags, but they DO function.

A-tier is entirely centered around audience presence. these sites are great for showing off your work, but they don't have the same population as the S-tier. mastodon can be good as the quieter instances give you more discoverability. bluesky has been THRIVING when it comes to the furry community as of late [i'm personally on there daily] - the only reason i don't put it as S-tier is because it's invite-only AND you need to rely on your work being found through the Feeds feature if you aren't an already established artist.

B-tier: useful, but population may hinder your growth. toyhouse is GREAT for posting your original characters and stories, but it is invite-only and not necessarily gallery-focused [it can be USED for a gallery, but it's not the main purpose]. you can also post stories and lore to toyhouse. discord and telegram are Good, but again it can be hard to gain an audience through sites that require invites.

C-tier: it is DIFFICULT to grow on paywalled sites with original content. cohost [to my knowledge] has been stagnating with the release of bluesky.

F-tier: threads sucks, the end.

POSTING FANWORK, FANFIC, FANDOM CONTENT IN GENERAL

S-tier here is sorted because of audience presence. while twitter does suck, i'm finding a LOT of success there with fanart. tumblr is The fandom site of course. furaffinity is great for a surprising range of fanart that isn't exclusive to furry, and deviantart's Groups feature is still going strong which can give you that extra exposure.

A-tier is: fans Go here, but the population or algorithm can make things tricky. instagram is good for fanwork but the algorithm and the speed that things are posted there can make discoverability an uphill battle. patreon; if you make comics or art with fan characters [especially 18+ content lmao] you can grow pretty rapidly there. patreon, like any other paywalled site, should be a secondary site and not your Primary posting location. artfol and pillowfort are still growing. pillowfort has a Communities feature - sort of like deviantart groups - that you can submit your art to which gives you that extra exposure. artfol is just a nice gallery site and the tagging system is,, decent enough. a little confusing because the tag system looks up keywords in posts and titles First, you have to tab over to hashtag searching specifically.

B-tier: invite only and audience reach. again, bluesky relies on your art to be picked up in Feeds, as there's currently no tag search. inkblot is growing but has a decent audience. ko-fi isn't as known as patreon for exclusive content but it's still a good site. mastodon has tagging that makes discoverability easier, but mastodon and its many servers can make things confusing for some people. itaku's not as commonly used so it may be harder to gain new eyes there once you establish yourself.

C-tier: posting fanart to these sites Can Work. toyhouse focuses on posting and sorting original characters, so treating it as a gallery site won't get your far fast. it isn't impossible to grow as an artist there, but the site isn't intended for fanart posting. i cannot say much on cohost here. telegram and discord, again, it's harder for people to discover you out of the blue unless you mention your server / channel on another site.

F-tier: fuck threads.

lastly, to address thieves,

thieves are gonna be everywhere. i'm sorry to say, but there will always be shitty people. i recommend the following:

watermark your art. not in the corner, don't just sign in one spot, place a Huge translucent watermark over the WHOLE art. i recommend making it a colour gradient too instead of one solid colour or greyscale.

also: sign your goddamned art! put your username on there!

post a low resolution when sharing online. less than 1200px wide or tall. 72dpi. JPEG format. keep the high res privately for yourself.

add a subtle noise filter over your art. it doesn't have to be high opacity, and it'll make your art a little grainy, but it's good for fucking with AI bots and ruining any print quality potential.

i hope this offers some insight! if you have a different experience on these sites, please feel free to add your testimonial in the replies or reblogs! not every artist is going to have the same experience and growth rate.

#long post #art website posting #art sites

[meruz]

📌

hi tumblr my name is meruz im a bg artist who works in animation. i do comic projects and fanart in my free time. my art tag is #meruzart

portfolio / digital store / print store / misc. links (linktr.ee)

📝 FAQ below!

Can I use your art as ______?

8Tracks and Spotify Playlists: Go ahead! please credit me either meruz.tumblr.com twitter@automeruz or ig@automeruz -  AND SEND ME THE PLAYLIST this is not a requirement really but I would love to listen to it.

Social Media Layouts/Icons/Headers: Good by me! but again PLEASE credit me somewhere VISIBLE on the layout. If it’s a twitter or insta header/icon credit my twitter/insta @automeruz and if its tumblr credit my tumblr @meruz​

Phone BGs, Desktop Wallpapers: definitely ok!! Any personal and non-commercial use of this nature, I’m cool with. If you ask me, I may even send you a hi-res version of the file but you have to promise to not scam me and sell it lol…

Instagram Reposts: A lot of artists would say no but I’m gonna say go ahead as long as you credit and tag me in the post, again my ig is @automeruz - if you don’t, and I find it, I will bug you about it in the comments and possibly even report you. Nothing personal, its just standard procedure.

Twitter/Tumblr Re-posts: Don’t?? Just RT or RB it from me?? whats wrong with you? I will report this.

Other site re-posts: I’ll probably say yes but again please credit and for this one PLEASE ask me first. It’s nothing personal really, I just want to know where my work shows up.

Video edits/fancams/comic dubs: Yes! Absolutely go ahead! Credit would be much appreciated but moreover please send me a link I especially love to see this stuff!!

I also reserve all rights to have you take it down if I do not agree with the usage or context, especially association with politics on the webpage/app/etc. 

What do you use to draw?

I have a surface pro 8 at home and I use a 22in cintiq at work. Occasionally… I do personal art at work LOL. I use Photoshop CC almost exclusively except the occasional phone drawing which I’ll do on HeavyPaint or Autodesk Sketchbook (but mostly Heavypaint). What brushes do you use? For painting I use the same horrible brushes I downloaded from deviantart like 14 years ago and I cobbled them together for download here. And for lines ive been using shiyoon kim’s brushes which you can grab here. 

What do you use for plein air paintings? If it’s digital, almost exclusively Heavypaint. Traditional, I use gouache. A mix of Holbein acryla and normal gouache either windsor newton or m. graham.

What kind of sketchbook do you use? I use moleskine cahier XXL sketchbooks! I’ve been using moleskine cahiers for probably over 10 yrs now? they come in packs of 3 for like 30USD (the price went up recently booo but $10 per book is still not bad) for the largest size. I think a lot of people associate moleskine with intimidatingly fancy covers & paper but the cahiers are rly lightweight and flexible. you can bend the xxl into a roll like a newspaper and the covers are a light cardboard so you can draw all over them. I always have trouble with spiral sketchbooks getting fucked up in my backpack because I really throw my stuff around a lot but the binding on the cahiers can take a beating and have never fallen apart on me.

Do you take commissions?

Yes, occasionally. But it changes depending on my workload - please e-mail me at [email protected] for any inquiries!

Do you have a store?

I have a itch.io here for mostly digital goods.

and I have an INPRNT store here which is print on demand so if there’s anything you’d like to see on there that isn’t just ask and I can generally put it up!

#meruzart #<-- feel free to click on that if ur on mobile to get to my art tag bc apparently mobile hates when i link tags

[soracities]

hey ! i’m very curious !!

you talked about social media in one of your last posts and i wish you could talk about your relationship with social medias !

honestly i don't know how i would describe my relationship to it simply because i detest like 90% of what social media is about. however i DO try to focus on intentionality and being very mindful of what i use and how i use it. the only social media i use as social media are twitter and instagram but i try to be very careful about the time i spend on them. this is easy for twitter because i have no vested interest in it so i just log in maybe once or twice every few months because i only use it to follow various writers / publishers and see what new releases are upcoming or what books are being talked about. i'll retweet a few quotes / puns / medieval illustrations, make note of books or articles and call it a day for another two months or even more sometimes.

instagram is my "main" one but even then i know how easy it is for me to get caught up in their reels so i try to stay away from that as much as i can (i also despise what it does to music for me): i don't follow brands, influencers, or celebrities (i follow one international musician and like, 3 writers, and that's it)--my feed is predominantly urban gardening / nature / arts accounts, but i use it far more like the morning paper to see what my friends are seeing or follow any little updates in their stories. i have post notifications turned on for some of my closest friends so that the only things i DO get notified on when i'm spending time away from the app are the people whose updates are most important to me--but even then, IG is not my main form of communication because the closest people in my life know how to contact me directly.

again i don't take social media seriously, chiefly because i can't: the idea of needing to be constantly "tuned in" is one i really dislike so i'm never invested in whatever the current trends are. the only consistent main one for me is tumblr and even then i'm on this blog almost exclusively on desktop which limits how i often i log on to begin with. i still try to remain intentional and since it's more an archive or a collection of things i like and want to keep, my main objectives are usually: collect the quotes i want to save, browse my mutuals / favourite blogs, check my inbox when and if i'm able. i can still end up prone to spending more time here than i would like, but i also know that--most of the time, anyway--i'm spending that time gaining something: photos or artwork i love get saved to my computer or notion folders, poems that move me get copied into my ledger or saved on my laptop, links to certain articles get clicked on and read immediately when i can--this is great to stop me from scrolling mindlessly and actually using the time more wisely, but if i can't read it immediately i just move them onto my desktop so i don't forget to read them later on. when i feel i'm still spending too much time here, or simply not devoting enough time to other things that are important to me, i'll set days aside where i do log in and days when i don't.

anyway that's where i'm at with social media at the moment, anon x

#ask #anonymous

[lollytea]

what (human) social media do you think the hexaquad uses/is on. Because personally I think Luz is weird and bi enough that she would use tumblr and completely commit to the goncharov bit

Luz absolutely uses tumblr as her primary socmed and she has an intimate relationship with the nature of its insanity. She's the one the others ask when they stumble across an utterly incomprehensible meme and Luz will be like "Okay so basically the origin of eeby deeby is--"

She has two blogs. One for art and one for reblogs/fandom/shitposting. She used to have a twitter but she deleted it some time during the Thanks to Them montage because she was dealing with too much bullshit to tolerate the cesspool. She has an Instagram that she uses exclusively for posting art.

Oh and ao3. How could I forget ao3?

I feel like Amity is completely uninterested in human social media. Out of all the kids, she's the only one who didn't really find a specific hobby/interest during her time in gravesfield. She's already got a pensta and she likes how it's tailored for witch society. She'd have no interest in Instagram or twitter or shit like that. BUT she would absolutely go apeshit once she discovers the Good Witch Azura fandom in the Human Realm. (Literally NOBODY back home even knew what those books were.) She doesn't understand the memes and shitposts or general culture but Amity would absolutely have a fandom specific tumblr. She mostly just reblogs from Luz. An ao3 too of course <3

Willow used pensta for general teen reasons like selfies and socializing with her friends before she came to Gravesfield but now that she's developed an interest in photography? Oh that girl's account is gonna get such a glo up. She'd have an Instagram too. She actually becomes pretty popular on both accounts. Not ✨️Influencer✨️ status but she's gained quite a following of humans and witches alike.

I like to imagine that she also has a Pinterest. Idk she strikes me as somebody who'd enjoy collecting aesthetic pics and making boards. For the same reason she also has a tumblr that's mostly aesthetic with the occasional feral little reblog like this thrown in

Gus is a tiktok kid!!! Gus is SUCH a tiktok kid!!! I could also see him having a YouTube channel where he posts deranged little vlogs (in this universe Gus13 does not exist or its after it happened and only adds more fuel to the fire.) A twitch too maybe?? I could see him streaming. Basically I just think Gus would be drawn to all the video-focused social media.

I think he'd have a twitter too where he tweets his insane little thoughts and it actually blows up in popularity because people think it's a parody account.

Also....he would read Wikipedia religiously and eventually get banned from making his own edits.

Ok ok ok ok I think it would be so funny if Hunter got his penstagram account back in ASIAS, got so excited about finally having a regular teen experience but after a year or so once he's become well acquainted with pensta culture he's like "Well. This sucks."

So basically

Back when Hunter got a scroll, he followed Willow and that was that. He never followed anyone else. He has never posted anything. He can't even be convinced to follow any more of his friends. Not even Gus. He has notifications on for when Willow posts. He pops in to like them and then he fucks off again. People have forgotten that Hunter even has an account.

But when it comes to human socmed OHHHHH....

I want to say he has a devianart. But I'm not sure because I'm pretty sure that devianart is a husk of its former self. So he probably just has a tumblr. Hunter has not yet learned that you can make seperate blogs for all your different interests so his blog is a cluttered mess of his whole autistic self Cosmic Frontier brainrot, wolves, anime, the occasional embroidery pics that Willow tags him in.

Also he would be on neopets.

BONUS CHARACTERS:

Camila is on Facebook and Instagram. Also after the events of the series she gradually begins to rediscover the Cosmic Frontier message boards she used to frequent back when Manny was still alive. They brought back memories of her grief for the longest time but she's beginning to once again embrace her love for the series. She's even reconnected with some old online friends <3

Vee would have all the Normal Human Teenage Girl Social Media. She mostly uses twitter, Instagram and Pinterest. She also stays active on Facebook just to like her mom's posts.

Mattholomule would use reddit. Don't disagree with me I'm right.

#sorry for giving so many of them tumblrs #theyre gay and autistic what else am i supposed to give them

[theygotlost]

i will still remain here as my primary social media until its physically impossible but all night ive been thinking about what I would do if/when tumblr is gone for real so here are my options:

twitter: probably not. its become a completely unusable wasteland ever since musk bought it and I deleted my account shortly after that. it used to me my other main social media but I can't see myself returning to it any time soon.

cohost/bluesky/pillowfort/some other new twitter alternative: ive never tried these out so idk how I feel about them but I'm thinking of making an account now and testing the waters. even if I do end up liking one of them I sincerely doubt many of my mutuals/followers would end up migrating with me, so there wouldn't really be much point. I would only have like 10 followers

neocities: ive never used this one either but idk how it's supposed to work as a social media. you can make your own website but is there like a feed where you can see other people's posts? I still want to be able to see what everyone else is up to

instagram: i hate instagram so much i really do but I feel like if I overhauled everything and made a new account and changed how i engaged with it it might genuinely be my best option at least for posting art. it's really not even good for posting art (the way i draw a lot of my art is optimized for being formatted on tumblr) but who knows. i currently have an art account there but a lot of irls from school follow it so I have to use my government name and I havent posted anything in over a year so I think the most viable option is to just start over with a new account exclusively for my tumblrinas. posting on instagram removes 1 year of my lifespan though

discord: not a social media website but I will make sure to add all my mutuals who I havent already. just like everyone else Im so bad at maintaining 1 on 1 conversation so I would rarely feel like hitting up anyone in particular and I also hate almost all servers. maybe I could finally cave and make my own mutuals server but i feel like nobody would give a shit

reddit: reddit scares the shit out of me cause i feel like its 90% straight men. there are fandom subreddits but they probably suck. and its not like i can post art there

go offline cold turkey and magically become a normal well adjusted functioning member of society with no mental issues: still waiting for this one to happen.

kill myself: 🤷‍♀️

[yenah-on-top]

Ok hello friends, at the request of multiple people, I am going to make a little reblog guide for Tumblr !!!

This is all in good spirits ok ? I know lots of the Twitter population are unsure of the workings of this website, and to be fair I had a time when I used to not understand it at all. Please don't take this to heart, if you know this all then it's probably not for you.

Ok so first I'll start with mobile (the version I use almost exclusively)

So you have a post !!! Wow this post is interesting, I agree with this post, I like what this post brings to the table ! For whatever reason, you like this post, and you want to share it !!! Well the best way to do that is to click the reblog button !!!

You see that little button there, it's used for this function on most social media !!! Looks like the recycling button !!! I couldn't get a good screencap of it, but on mobile you can press and hold that button, and you get the option to swipe it onto any blog you want !!! (Depending on how many you have. It only shows up to 3 as an option on mobile so if you have more than 3 it might get wonky) but that is a way to get a one click reblog !!!! No fuss, no mess, no hassle, just on your blog in less than a second !!!

This is very handy if you don't intend to add tags !!! And if you want a quick version with tags, that's something you can do on desktop ! But we'll get to that.

If you want to do something other than a no tag quick reblog on mobile you just click the button and this shows up !!!

So you're here !!! You have alllll these options to add onto the post before you reblog it !!! The most important usually is the tags, you can add whatever tags you want, but be mindful !!! On Tumblr people tend to read the tags people put on their posts, and now these tags are automatically sent into the notes of both the person you reblog from, And the the original poster !!! So it's best to think first about your tags before tacking on something rude or inappropriate !!! You aren't alone on this website !!!

See the dots in the top right corner ? There are lots of options there !!!

So here you have more control !!! You have the default here, post now. That's what quick reblog does as well, and honestly if you don't add tags I recommend fast reblogs over this, it's just less tedious.

Next is queue !!!! The queue function is. Honestly elusive to me. But if I am to believe that it is to be trusted, then you can set a timeframe, and an amount of posts between 1 and 50 that will leave your queue automatically at the set time, spread out evenly. You can add as many posts to your queue as you want !!!

You can also schedule posts !!!!! For the memes !!!! Is there a silly post that has a specific date that makes it funnier ? Schedule it for the next time it happens !!! I see ops use this for series they have often, but I've never personally used this feature.

Drafts are for when you want to edit something ? I honestly keep things that people put info on in there, never to escape. Like references for art or videos I want access to.

Now we move on to desktop !!!

Same post right ? If you want a fast reblog option you can download xkit !!! It has many features, most of which I don't actually know bc I very rarely use desktop.

With xkit, once you turn on fast reblog, you can hover over the reblog button, and...

This shows up !!! It gives you the same reblog, queue, and draft options. It also lets you add tags !!! It's even more convenient to you than it is on mobile !!! Gives you options !!!

If you want to do a two click reblog though, it looks something like this !!!

There's not much here for if you don't want to add onto the main post, at least looking at what fast reblog can do. If you want more options click on the little arrow next to the reblog button

And still at this point there's just post privately and schedule here. You also have a preview button. But yeah I feel like if you install xkit there's not much use in the multi click reblog. But I am a mobile user first and human second so take that as you will !!!

That's the tutorial from your resident stayblr pr person !!! I'm doing this because I have the work experience needed (read: I have used my entire post limit of 250 posts on like. 5 of my friends posts in a day before)

Tl;dr:

Ultimately this is a place where reblogs spread posts. Likes have no use whatsoever, but I'm not really here to yell at you to reblog more instead of liking.

Reposting is significantly more work than it is to reblog. Just don't do it. It gives engagement to the creators you enjoy the work of if you reblog, and it fosters an environment that we want on this website.

Reblog from creators !!! It makes them want to stay and keep creating !!! And fandom would be sad without them !!!

#fe forte #reblog tutorial #long post #resources #tumblr #kpop #tutorial

[marinersubmariner]

The twitter mess has got me thinking about livejournal and fandom platforms in general, so here’s a lot of words that mostly amount to me being old and sad!!

The past couple years I’ve really struggled with the pull to start using twitter because so much fandom activity moved over there, while at the same time being held back by knowing that it would not be a satisfying experience for me. I lurk there a little, and it’s alright in small doses, but it just doesn’t work for the types of fandom posts that I can contribute or that I want to see. And it has increasingly frustrated me how much people post fanart exclusively over there when its formatting is awful for fanart (no archives! no organized tagging system! completely unbrowseable by subject matter or time period! everything disappears in .02 seconds if it even crosses your view at all! WOW SO GREAT. I get that it lets you post porn but that isn’t a big draw for me :/ yeah, I know, what am I even doing on the internet)

My preferred form of fandom is images and graphics and art and long-form commentary and twitter just isn’t made for those things. You can kind of jury-rig it for them I guess (weirdly cropped 2-to-4-image photosets, hmm. great. threaded tweets??? you know there was a time when you could put all your related thoughts into a single post!) but it’s obviously designed for brief little texts and I’m too self-conscious about writing things for that to ever work for me. The way I see it is you can absolutely tweet on tumblr but you cannot make a tumblr post on twitter, and that’s the fundamental disconnect that has prevented me from leaving. I’m not compelled to go to a platform with fewer and worse features. (well, that plus the fact that I no longer have any friends to follow in the way that I followed the crowd from livejournal to tumblr. why bother!!! NOBODY’S LISTENING! —Cassian Andor about posting on social media)

I totally understand people mourning what could be the loss of years of fandom activity on that site, but at the same time its immediacy has always made it appear more fleeting to me anyway. Obviously you can scrounge up old posts if you really dig around, but without archives or functional tags it has never seemed to be a platform that encourages a long lifespan for anything posted there. Which is of course the trade-off for it being so current and of-the-moment, but I also think it’s detrimental to the fandom ecosystem as a whole, and on a personal level I’m too much of a hoarder for that kind of disposability to work for me. I like to keep things in my little treasure trove and continually pore over it with fondness. :(

I also just have too much anxiety, uh, in general, but especially with instantaneous forms of communication, so I get extremely avoidant about anything fast-paced. Chats always made me nervous, I don’t like texting, it all makes me a little too frazzled to do for fun. I was okay with message boards and lj comments because there wasn’t as much expectation of a quick response (and of course there was way more separation of Internet Time when you didn’t have a smartphone on you 24/7. boundaries!!!! never heard of them). A lot of this is purely mental hangups because I’m perfectly capable of communication, but it’s stressful and exhausting and the internet is filled with increasing pressure to never say the wrong thing (which is already a pressure in my head!!) so to add forced brevity and urgency on top of that... it makes me so uncomfortable and it’s such an enormous barrier when the foundation for literally everything is communication. Words are hard!!! I’m not terrible at it but there’s always an excessive amount of deliberation involved and it’s such a difficult thing to grapple with all the time. Constantly, forever. The mortifying ordeal of SELECTING WORDS to make yourself known!!!!!!!

I guess also nothing has ever been as conducive to discussion and replies as lj. Tumblr replies are so limited and reblogging to add your own commentary is a totally different thing. Private messages are there, but there’s no decent mechanism for open back-and-forth conversation. So even while part of me is glad that people might come back here, more activity on my preferred platform doesn’t change the fact that I still feel dissatisfied with the way all of this operates in general. Tumblr is better than twitter, but even tumblr isn’t that great.

To be honest I’ve become so fuckin weird about this stuff that I now essentially use google docs like a private secret livejournal. I type out my thoughts constantly as though I were writing an actual post to share and then I never share it. Which is probably. insane. But in the era of social media all fandom stuff either seems like way too public a forum full of jerks or it’s seen by nobody anyway so why bother. There don’t seem to be comfortable niche spaces anymore, or if there are I never found them, and besides that I’m too shy and too tired to seek them out and work up the energy to interact. So I just talk to myself like a lunatic. It’s super healthy I’m sure!!!!

I also just really miss how I felt on the internet and in fandom spaces when I was younger, making pointless little websites and graphics and posting photographs just because I wanted to. And obviously I still make things because I WANT to, but the act of actually posting to the internet now and the way that others engage with it seems so much more transactional than it used to. I got into making graphics when it was only like a handful of people on a message board sharing things with each other, and it’s wild how much more fulfilling and encouraging it was to have just a few familiar people make comments than it is to get likes and reblogs. A little number ticker on a post is like... that’s it? That’s all there is? It’s so hollow and mechanical.

Sort of the best way I can think of to describe how it feels to me is that it used to be more like being the proprietor of a quaint storefront where you peddled your wares and people could come and go and chat as they please, and now it’s more like tossing one of your wares onto a highway where it gets driven over at 80mph. And certainly that perception is skewed by rose-colored nostalgia about ~the way things used to be~, I’m much older now so I’m sure my temperament has changed a lot too, I slowed down while everything else sped up, time makes fools of us all, etc. But I’ve seen enough people express similar things about the modern internet that I do think maybe it’s not just me.

I don’t know, unless you’ve been following me since livejournal this probably all sounds like nonsense coming from a silent lurker who barely even posts. I’ve always been much more reticent on tumblr because it feels so exposed—the potential for things to spiral way outside of your orbit is both scary and annoying. But I guess I just don’t really know how to participate in fandom anymore in the way it exists now. I don’t have a community and it feels impossible to break back in amongst The Youths. I don’t have the energy to contribute as much as I want to, and then when I do expend the energy it seems like a waste of time because it’s stuff that either goes entirely unseen or it gets silently viewed and disposed of in an infinitesimal fraction of the time it took to put together. So there are these two warring impulses of: this is making you unhappy and you should stop vs. it doesn’t matter if you’re entirely alone when you’re still having fun by yourself with your special interest that you enjoy. And I don’t know how to reconcile the two.

[batfeula]

Somehow only today I found your non-pixel art artworks on the Instagram page through one of your posts here and I love it! Never seen them on Twitter before, I think. Is there a special reason for such separation of styles? Will you be posting more of it here on Tumblr?

When I started drawing "seriously" instagram was the best social platform to share art: there were no stories and reels, just images, so it was natural for me to use it. Over time, however, the nature of instagram has changed, it became increasingly difficult to get noticed among the posts and, with the desire to "become famous", on the advice of a friend I decided to create a Twitter account, where according to him it was easier to grow. (I'm ashamed of it, but in those days I was really obsessed with likes and followers) So when I started on Twitter I was just reposting the same things as Instagram and if I'm not mistaken at the time I was participating in the October challenge "Season of Bad Guys" organized by Craig Gleason on instagram. They were the same posts on two different platforms with a different level of interaction, on Twitter if I reached 5 likes it was a lot. Apparently growing up on Twitter wasn't as easy as I was told... However I felt that I didn't like Instagram anymore, several years had passed and I was always the small fish in a sea that was too big, I hadn't managed to make friends with any other artist and my list of followers had turned into a phone book, there were only people who followed me because they knew in real life. So, when I started making pixelart for fun, I decided to start completely from scratch and rather than create a new instagram account, I preferred to use the twitter account I already had. And so, my twitter became exclusively pixelated. However, I continue to do digital art, in fact last year I also followed a course in digital painting and concept art, and even if I like it and sometimes I miss dedicating myself completely to that, unfortunately pixelart is the only thing that has made me earn some money. Tumblr is a whole new world, I haven't quite figured out how to use it yet, but it might be the next platform I run off to to escape the stressful things about Twitter. So I don't know, maybe there's a new quarantine and I'm going to study 3D modeling and I'm dedicating this account only to lowpoly characters. Excuse me if I wrote a ton of stuff, I really like chatting and twitter has never allowed me to do so much in a single post, to make it up to you here is an illustration which is neither on twitter nor on instagram.

#artist #art #artists on tumblr #my art #fanart #alice in wonderland #illustration #story time #batfeula

[petewentzisblack1312]

hi i wanted to ask something but also share something personal as well. my q is: do you feel like your relationship w social media has changed? meaning, do you catch / notice when you are on it for too long and you start to notice, and then you say: okay let's take a break. for me, i have been online for a long time ever since i was a kid, and now my relationship to it is i only limit myself an hour to being on my phone. as an adult now i am no longer social media "obsessed". like, when i am in school i am not thinking about online, i am present when im at school. i feel like i am really close to just deleting sm tbh. it does not grant me happiness like it used to. now as an adult i feel this need to live my life freely.

i also wanted to ask what are ur thoughts on content influencers? to me when i see these ppl i think...i could never post about everything about my life, but then again understanding that it is just a highlight reel. no one is posting every sad / frustrating thing that happens in their life as influencer, only the "great" parts.

this is an interesting question! i think ive never really had a relationship to social media where i feel like i need to post constantly or felt pressured to share everything. while im definitely the most online out of my household, compared to a lot of other people im not really very present online. i dont like using twitter, i only really use instagram to look at and post art and occasionally post a picture of my cat or nature or food on my main account, i dont really get up to much and i never use facebook unless i have to. i hate it. even here on tumblr i dont post a lot about my personal life unprompted, and this is the social media site i use the most by far. i do scroll tumblr a lot, i do watch a lot of youtube videos (though almost exclusively video essays on politics and recently also artist vlogs) and i do notice myself scrolling a bit too much, particularly when im overstimulated but instead of doing something less stimulating im anxious and looking for a distraction so i like. scroll harder. but ive never been like doing something else and thought 'man, i wish i was scrolling right now'. i dont really know. i do have trouble putting my phone down, like when i need to sleep, but i have trouble putting ANYTHING down. games, books, art or writing or projects im working on, music im listening to, i dont think tumblr is special, its just another activity for me to be distracted by.

all that being said, i did leave social media for a while. i had a really bad experience in a fandom on tumblr (not the pwams incident. that led me to step away from bandom and move to another fandom) and honestly it made me realise that the problem i had with social media wasnt that i was using it too much, but that i had a toxic relationship with the communities i was interacting with on there. the nature of my relationship to social media was unhealthy, not the fact that i had one that was a large part of my life. i think when i wasnt using any social media i actually wasnt in a great place either, because i was isolated from people id cared about, especially since i had just undergone a very traumatic incident, and because of that became very isolated from my in person friends as well, even before the pandemic pushed me away from even the acquaintances i had made. i was worried about coming back to tumblr, but i think ive grown and learned in such a way that i know how i like to comport myself in cyberspaces, and that its been good for me in a way. which is weird, but. i think id kind of have to go in depth about my life and how the pandemic affected me and the specific nature of coming of age in st lucia and stuff. which i dont want to do haha.

as for influencers. i hate the concept. i understand it, and i dont universally hate influencers as a whole, but like. theres this specific kind of content creator where the thing they are sharing is just their life and there isnt like a specific thing theyre logging, like an artist sharing their creative process and how they manage their life around that, or a chef sharing recipes, and its not like theyre doing it just to do it, they have the goal of growing a following, and theyre not advertising anything but themself, like JUST themself, as a person-brand, and i find that so deeply annoying and repulsive. and like thats strong wording its a dog eat dog world and the girlies of all genders need to secure the bag like i get it. i get it. but its revolting to me. like. the vlogbrothers werent trying to get famous they were using youtube to communicate with each other and as an open video diary and people found them to be interesting personalities to watch. right. do you get it. annoyingly i gotta put myself out there if i want people to find my art and pins and stuff so i have to fuckin. make videos. sell people on me. the idea of making vlogs makes me dry heave bc im not important i dont want to have to sell myself like im important i dont want to put my face on a camera and implicitly say with every quirky performed statement i make 'i matter, pay attention to me, i need to exist so look at me' but unfortunately i might have to. a video essay i could do. thats me saying something. but a vlog? with the goal of people finding my stuff? good god. it sounds like poison.

#dils declares #my tripod is broken so im using that as an excuse to not vlog. #i can do shortform video. thats dispassionate. #thats 60 seconds of selling myself or more likely my stuff in a highly edited way #there is no veneer of authenticity. no kayfabe. #i can do that. #but a whole fucking vlog? nauseating.

[nyoggets]

Some thoughts on fandom, burnout, process of creation and never feeling good enough.

(it is now 4am and I've given up on sleep)

So I've avoided ever talking about this on twt because? The platform is such a mess, people use it to liveblog their feelings but it's also got that usual socmed feel to it - only show the good, funny, relatable or glamorous stuff.

I like art, obviously. Love it even, it's been the one constant in a life of switching hobbies and obsessions on the weekly. But it's also been so, SO difficult at times. I draw, so gotta share it on social media, right? The first time I shared my art online was when I was 9, on a ratty, now defunct forum.

I don't recall many responses aside from "I don't think she's ever been to the hair dresser". Instagram was released in 2010, and I made the switch, continued to post my drawings in earnest, participating in art contests that were super popular at the time. Obviously I never won any, I was just learning, starting out. Winning wasn't my goal, my goal was to get a spot in the honourable mentions or likes and attention from the bigger artists hosting these. When that didn't work I tried to game the algorithm before I even know what an algorithm was. I also made some friends this way, most of which had a higher follower count despite our (in my mind) fairly evenly matched skill. I entered more contests, I begged friends for collars, I drew things I dislikes because I saw them being popular. Nothing worked, I became obsessed over numbers, a drawing was only worth something if it got enough likes, which it never did. I tried for a while longer, then didn't pick up a pen for almost 2 years.

Eventually, because I just couldn't leave art behind I started again, focusing on original works and punching myself for losing 2 years of practice time. Things were fine, I stayed away from social media aside from Tumblr but never really posted anymore, stayed quiet. Of course, I still resented those artist friends a bit for their ever growing following, but what right had I? I'd given up and spent 2 years moping.

Eventually I got really into Love Live and with it finally a new ship I could sink my teeth into and draw - ChikaRiko. Inevitably, I wanted to feel part of communities again, I didn't have anyone in real life to share my obsessions with. I was very much the weird quiet kid, and as much as I craved being around people, being deaf with my hearing steadily dying away even further without anyone noticing, talking to people was just Hard, so so very hard. But online, where I could read, didn't need to be able to listen? It was easy, besides, my only friends so far had all been online. What's the harm in dipping my toes back into fandom?

So, I created a twitter account, discord, found people to chat and share my art, pretty much exclusively ChikaRiko, with. And things were fine again! People were reacting to what I posted, engaging, asking questions, providing advice. Then... I opened twitter back up, looked at numbers, compared them, and became angry at myself again. Comparison is the thief of joy indeed. Several years ahead, fire emblem three houses comes out and with it dimilix hits me like a sack of bricks (affectionately). Another new ship! And the fandom was active, I could fit in here, maybe! And I'd like to believe I did, if only because the fandom is just so truly relaxed, given my unfortunate decline of my mental health it was probably the only sort of fandom environment I could exist in. Still, I kept comparing myself, kept being dissatisfied with the direction my art was taking. I had all these symbolic ideas, things I wanted to try, wanted to be more like the artists I looked up. Wanted to do my own stuff, original art, instead of confining myself. But any time I did do so the reception was lukewarm at best, nonexistent at worst, so I stuck to fanart that became increasingly removed from the canon. Which, still super fun and honestly we were all just screaming into the void of time between the two years until three hopes came out, delusional fanon felt very much encouraged. Again, loved and still love the general vibe of the dmlx community (stares lovingly at DTF and For Years). But still, I wasn't satisfied with what I was doing, and my motivation to draw at all regularly died off for months at a time, which really isn't ideal when you're trying to feed the all-devouring behemoth that is the algorithm.

This October I tried something I hadn't done since 2018 - inktober. Back when I did it it was just 31 days of increasingly delusional ChikaRiko (are we seeing a pattern here), this time around I wanted to be "self indulgent" and draw only original art, loosely oriented on two lists of prompts. Of course, I didn't finish, still haven't, but I'm only missing a few prompts now. But!!! I've drawn!!! More in these 3 months than I have in recent years, and my ideas aren't slowing down yet, I keep coming up with new ones on the daily. It just feels so, so Good to find joy in art again. Best of all, I felt no need at all to share this stuff anywhere but the small discord server I've been nodding for years, with friends who at this point weren't really expecting art from me that matched their interests. I was finally drawing for me and me alone, so the response was of no importance to me, and the moment I dropped a finished piece I started the line art of the next one. Of course, I'm slowly unleashing everything into the void that is Tumblr and while any notes delight me, the number really doesn't concern me much anymore.

Not that all my fanart didn't spark joy to me! I just have too many things I wanna get out of my head that aren't very fanart compatible at all.

Fandom is weird and wonderful and I don't really remember a time in my life where I wasn't in any fandom at all, but frankly, my mental health and self image is a mess, and most social media actively does more harm than good to me, despite the friends I made.

Either way, I'm finally, finally for the first time in years excited to see what the future brings for me and art, how I'll improve, what I'll draw over the next year.

#4am thoughts #but like nice warm thoughts #anyways dmlx fandom is still the best <3

[strifeborn]

— ❝ 𝐄𝐗-𝐒𝐎𝐋𝐃𝐈𝐄𝐑; 𝐈 𝐐𝐔𝐈𝐓. ❞

#𝚜𝚝𝚛𝚒𝚏𝚎𝚋𝚘𝚛𝚗: indie & private rp blog for cloud strife of final fantasy vii and all related media based primarily on the remake trilogy. written & dearly loved by wasabi (they/them). MDNI.

[ CURRENT REBIRTH PROGRESS ]: chapter 6 (spoilers don't bother me; i'm working very slowly through it)

DOSSIER. pin board. journal. HEADCANONS. playlist ( wip ). ASK PROMPTS.

blogroll: @siabann (main). @furtivitee. @osolitas

CREDITS: post banner psd. any render art found in icons on this blog are by @/silverelitist on twitter.

RULES & GUIDELINES

INTERACTIONS. i am open to just about all genres and methods of interactions, but bear in mind that i am mutuals only, and i reserve the right to refuse any interaction for my own personal reasons and comfort. anything suggestive will be properly tagged, and anything outright explicit be placed under a read more in addition to tagging. i'm open to crossovers, multiverses, oc interactions and any other character under the sun, really, so never be afraid to approach me (even if you have absolutely no idea who cloud is). i do not follow or interact with minors, and this blog is 21+ for my own comfort. i do check every blog that follows me, even if i don't do so immediately; if you're a minor and i notice you following me, i will block you.

ACTIVITY. unfortunately, i am busy and work often, and i am at the mercy of my fluctuating energy levels. as such, this blog has sporadic activity. sometimes i will be high activity for days or even weeks, and sometimes getting things written here will be very difficult for just as long. all i kindly ask is that you be patient with me when it comes to replies, especially ones that are on the longer side. i will get to them, and will never abandon a thread without notice. also be aware that this is not my main blog, and if i'm not here, you will probably find me here.

DRAMA, CALLOUTS, ETC. i am not here for drama, so don't involve me in it. i quite literally do not care what personal issues you have with another random tumblr user. i don't want to see it. i don't want anything to do with it. do not come to me with it. i will block you immediately. any problem you have with me can be resolved privately or not at all. i will not ever reblog or engage with callout posts. most times i won't even completely read them, if at all. please do not ever come into my inbox telling me about something or someone you may have seen me interact with, if we are not friends. i will form my own opinions and respond accordingly in private.

MAINS & EXCLUSIVES/AFFILIATES. i am open to mains and exclusives. however, that will require a considerable amount of trust and interaction beforehand, and i reserve the right to break either, should i no longer feel comfortable with it. if we are not comfortable as friends out of character, i will likely not be mains or exclusives with you.

SHIPPING. i am multiship and greatly value chemistry above all else. every ship that may occur on this blog is completely separate from each other unless specifically stated (and plotted) otherwise. i would also prefer for ships of any non-platonic nature to occur naturally through interaction, rather than have them pre-established and scripted with little to no prior interaction, as that is the only true way for us to know if our muses mesh well. that being said, i am open to plotting ships after a few organic interactions and pre-established platonic relationships.

if you've made it this far, i appreciate you greatly for taking the time to read this! my name is wasabi. i'm 28, and my pronouns are they/them. i am not new to tumblr rp and have been doing so since 2012! my old blogs are dead and have been for a long while but my last one was cloud's previous blog. discord is available to mutuals upon request.

#PINNED POST ; WASABI / 28 / THEY THEM

[qwizzers]

so i just found your youtube channel like a few minutes ago and I really enjoyed your video talking about different types of social media and your own personal experience/opinions on them because ive been bouncing back and forth between social medias. I personally miss the old twitter and instagram format but ever since instagram has been turned into a reel-obsessed platform it is very difficult to get reach there so i think twitter has been my most safest/casual posting experience for me. i felt like on instagram i had so much pressure to post reels and i never gave in but it was just super frustrating, sometimes really wanting to just completely leave it entirely, but for now i guess im trying to just post more. im not a tumblr user really but i had this tumblr acc ages ago so i decided to log back in just to message here, but i wanted to ask, if theres any way we can talk further abt this privately i would love to go more in depth ! i dont check tumblr often so im not even sure if you will ever answer this haha, or how i would know if you did or not, but i guess a question that also comes to mind is, how do you post without overthinking? i have so much art i make so many doodles and unfinished wips, and people post wips all the time ! and its like, i cannot bring myself to do that either... im scared of someone either tracing over my art/stealing my art /ocs and just im not sure i guess posting wips makes me not want to finish the art, but when i dont post often i often feel pressure to post fully rendered stuff and sometimes ! i just wanna post a cute furry oc with thigh socks is that so much to ask !!!!!!! XD,,, i kind of scare myself out of posting, but how do i make myself more comfortable with posting without worrying? i scare myself from doing anything haha, i WANT to be more active ! and i want to post more oc stuff and even fanart, but i always make excuses like "nah ill do that when i get better, or ill do it when the drawing is finished" and sometimes i dont even post finished sketches or art !!!!!! i will take any suggestions or anything, but im desperate to break this bad habit,,,, and also ! another question is, how do people code their toyhouse? i saw you explain it in the video a bit, and i recently just got my toyhouse to post oc stuff, but im not sure how people code their card.co, and toyhouse so if theres any sort of website or program or anything i can use to do this please let me know ! i really want to decorate my stuff more :3,,, anyways im not sure if you publically post these.... but if i can somehow post my discord somewhere so we can talk further please let me know !

okay, this ask was super sweet and i want to just say thank u bc it was a fun read :3 hopefully if you do see this response - i have a discord if you want to add me and talk, its qwizzers! i have a website (https://qwizz.carrd.co) and you can see all the sites that i use there so if you use any as well you can contact me there!

so my input on avoiding overthinking b4 you post is to start sharing your work in smaller places to build up your confidence! if you're worried about tracing/stealing, i don't want to say that's not a legitimate concern, bc it IS, however i will say it really doesn't happen too often! ive been around for years and i dont think ive...ever had anyone trace me, the most i've seen is heavy referencing and usually if you bring it to their attention, they instantly stop - when this happens i say it's 70% of the time just young kids that don't realize what theyre doing is wrong or didnt realize youd find out. you can also watermark your work! theres nothing wrong with watermarks, even if its just on a sketch! while it cant necessarily guard against tracers, it can guard against blatant theft. you dont necessarily have to post your work in progresses if doing so demotivates you; but you dont have to exclusively post fully rendered art, either. try to get into a habit of making doodles n more simple art in between your big pieces, and get into the swing of posting those! if you feel like you havent posted in a while, just make a quick doodle or something along those lines and share that! you can build up your confidence with posting online in general by starting small - you could start by sharing your art in discord servers or with your friends so you get more confident about sharing your work regularly. "ill do this when i'm good enough" is a SUPER detrimental train of thought...bc there will never be a point where you'll admit to yourself that you feel like you're ready. that's just a part of the artistic progression :') if you have that mindset, you'll ALWAYS have that mindset, and you'll never actually do the projects that you want to! if you think its outside your ability, it probably isnt really, and you should give it a go anyways! even if it doesnt look perfect or turn out exactly how you wanted it to, you'll probably still be happy in the end bc u gave it your best effort :]

heres my bit on toyhouse:

if you know how to code w html, all you have to do is press "edit profile" on a character and you can code directly into the big box field! if you're not seeing that, it has to do with your settings (which i can explain more in depth if need be) if you ARENT familiar w html, thats fine too! you can find a TON of free to use toyhouse code templates, and a lot of them even explain exactly how to use them! basically you can copy and paste their code for free into your character profile, and just change the text so it fits your character :3 i have a favorite folder for all the neat free to use codes i see, here's a link: https://toyhou.se/Qwizz/favorites/79962 *my toyhouse is kind of eyestrainy btw!) carrd is a seperate website: https://carrd.co you can make a carrd for free and its much more straightforward, you basically just drag text boxes/images in and customize the site how youd like :3

[jpivblog]

Holy shit Congrats dude! 🎉🎉 I don't even have like maybe 30 reblogs on my profile lmao

lmao thanks... yea... ive had and have been actively using this blog since...

2012. so. its added up over time

as a semi-aside, tumblr is my longest used and also favorite social media exclusively due to tags and the archive page. i can quickly filter and look up cute pictures of cats, or funny posts, or impressive works of art from last week or 5 years ago or whenever. it is an incredible pinboard. the fact reblogging creates a "local" duplicate of the post that persists through deletions has prevented link rot from claiming a lot of those old posts too. sure i could save things locally (and i do) but its so good being able to access (my) tumblr from any computer anywhere. also i've had like 4-5 computer failures in the last 11 years

and you flat out cant organize or scroll through a twitter (it was never designed for that). if i remembered seeing and RTing a nice art on there but forgot the url then i'm shit outta luck unless it was within the last 2 weeks. on tumblr i can just go to the archive page and filter by my "nice art" tag to find it again. unparalleled.

#pivstuff #i keep all of MY art extremely backed up so i havent really lost those in hardware failures #but art inspiration and reference is not as high a priority so... #also it is so good being able to pull up like an entire catalog of posts-i-find-funny. sometimes u need a laugh #not being able to re-find stuff i RT'd is one of the main reasons i hate twitter #and is also why i went back to posting my art here too

[punkalope]

All that venting to say it really sucks being a disabled artist who makes money on the internet rn tbh. I can't even make money at the moment for personal reasons but it frustrates me so much because my choices for an art site where I can put everything are:

classic deviantart clone with horrid management and is also 18+ that no one likes because of horrible drama, was literally perfect until hell broke loose

furry art site that is only slightly better than deviantart clone in terms of morals and probably has more professional management and isnt exclusively 18+ but makes me uncomfortable due to how its morals are only slightly better and i hate the layout

modern / eclipse deviantart which is so poorly optimized and lags to hell and back and hurts my eyes to look at. also half of it is broken, uploading to it is physically painful

indie art site that doesnt function at all because its so horribly optimized. also lacks any customization. is one of those "social medias for artists" things which is stupid

other smaller old art site that lacks customization and also has crappy morals

AI art galore, too professional for my tastes

tumblr, where i cant post my adult art

an art site that is app exclusive and also "social media for art"

instagram. you cant tell me tumblr is too difficult to use when instagram exists. i feel like a boomer trying to use it, and they change and remove shit every time i open it i swear. i never see what i want or like.

twitter is . twitter right now

personal website which i have to code and curate by myself. and while that gives me a lot of wiggle room its entirely up to me to separate my adult work from my sfw stuff. which i can do but it requires possibly an entirely separate website that i have to carefully try to make harder to access and i would rather have a company be responsible for this shit and not me, one person trying to get by. it takes a lot of work just to manage the site myself!

Anyways i'm jst really exhausted, and a lot of other life factors rn are making these things really hard for me.

#burrow.html #ive made ok money just being around communities and socializing too which i dont mind #and im very fortunate and lucky #but i dont have anywhere to put all my art in one place #toyhouse is the best i got btu thats specifically for my oc organizing

[northropi]

So I'm going to be using this more, for real this time.

In an effort to Holy Fucking Shit They're Considering Cisgender A Slur Now What The Fuck, I am soft-leaving Twitter. For real now. What do I mean? I will not post anything "directly."

I'll still like, follow, reply, retweet, whatever, but any media or in-depth text (so like also media) will no longer be natively placed on Twitter.

From now on anything I put on Twitter will be links to other sites.

It also seems inevitable at this point that I will eventually have to leave Twitter entirely because harassment is becoming more frequent.

While I'm not big enough to be readily targeted, bigots are trawling the trending tab to find anyone who comments on a recurring topic and start gnawing them.

I've never been a full "no ethical consumption under capitalism" person, but up until this, I could at least blow Elon's bigotry off as "oh, so we happen to have a bigoted owner on this site, well not gonna pay his ass so I'm fine in the short-term." But this policy, which seems to have gone through, is probably the first time something actively bigoted and not just generic right-lib "hey we should let bigots talk because censorship bad" has been written into the ToS.

To strongarm Cis out of our vocabulary leaves us with no words to describe Cis people exclusively (which is itself a pretty damning reason why it's not a fucking slur, but I don't think at this point that anyone who says they think it is is doing so in good faith). We have to use the word bigots want us to use to describe cis people.

Normal.

And every time we speak it, they'll lick their slimy lips and relish in the implication that, by exclusion, we have admitted we are not.

BlueSky likely will mark the end of Twitter being an even neutral space for vulnerable people in terms of community, though maybe I'm talking out my ass there because I hear some shit about BlueSky too- so sub BlueSky for whatever more solid Twitter-style multipurpose high-throughput platform follows and actually is good if I have to eat those words, I guess.

It, or the hypothetical next thing, will bleed Twitter of users who are, you know, not fucking horrible, and in turn, create a selective pressure that turns Twitter into a decidedly bigot-friendly site. This is the cost of being run by someone who thinks "free speech" should mean taking the wrong answer to the paradox of tolerance, and an idol to rightoids and conspiracy theorists who need that "gifted" Christ-figure and a supposed force of opposition to exist, even if they have to rip their brain in two to characterize that opposition as the establishment while, being conservatives, every single stance they take is pro-establishment.

You people ruined schizoposting, you know that?

Newgrounds will be for images with occasional text updates, this for long but relatively rough posts, Wix for more encyclopedia-style content as I intend to use it in a wiki-like capacity with secondary blog purposes (why not use wiki for that, you ask? because it looked like a lot to learn up front and there seemed to be like twelve different wiki formats, Wordpress/Wix was just easier but might change later).

I'll also aim for some filler on Youtube in the form of just video game clips so I can feed the algorithm a bit and try to be more active in exploiting what free time I have to actually use my mic for voiced stuff including, possibly, short streams, though that begs the question of where I'll be doing those.

As for Tumblr, a friend offered me to help me learn its syntax or whatever you'd even call it in this case to get it formatted. I wouldn't count on it replacing Newgrounds yet and that may be my primary art site from here on out (I've expressed concern about their harsh policy against WIPs and certain modeling programs that might include my VRoid work, but the latter would obviously be fine here and the former can still be posted in a publicly accessible capacity to NG, just not promoted in the art portal- hopefully I get "scouted" there sooner than later but nothing is a dealbreaker yet). The problem ofc is because, well... First off, NSFW. "Oh but you can post-" yes. I know. You can do some lewd stuff and fetish content fine as long as it doesn't hit a particular bar of "non-artistic" nudity. However, a lot of my stuff is raunchy fucking hypercock bellybulging cum cum madness. I can't just fly under that restriction and not need to eventually find another outlet.

Second, I really gotta handle these fucking bots. Not sure how many I have still as I imagine a lot are getting cleaned out by mods, but it seems follower notifs on this site have been going into junk for a while due to sheer frequency.

I'm also thinking about if I have it in me to forgive DeviantArt for their AI debacle, but the site's stance on it is concerning and I fear that there's at best going to be a ton of it flooding the site, which, while acceptable if they hold their promise of being able to opt out future works (remember, the opt-out doesn't apply to any works put up before- you can't un-train a neural network, so fuck that sideways), will be frustrating to interact with. I'm also going to look into ArtStation a bit, I recall them doing something dubious but I'm not sure of the status of it since. I actually already have an account there, for Project G.L.U.T.T.'s demo mostly...

#twitter refugees #long reads #art #vtuber