#i am my own biggest fan of the thing. so i am drawing myself fanart

[sickknotdoom]

Im genuinely really disappointed in Kittycorn for the fact that despite kit's relatively large following, kittycorn has said NOTHING publically about palestine, despite having the power to lead a lot of people to a lot of resources.

“Kit doesn’t have much of an internet presence outside of Sparklecare!!!” Then explain to me why i see so many popular artists who barely share jackshit about their personal lives, not even their pronouns, and yet still reblog and share stuff about Palestine. Kittycorn has literally 0 excuse not to say *anything*.

I'm gonna be so real and say that I'm half-expecting Kittycorn to be like "oh i dont reblog anything about it cuz it makes me sad :-((("

kit could at least like. Draw the Sparklecare characters in support for Palestine. Kit could do the bare fucking minimum here.

Kittycorn has such a large following and a lot of power, whether kit likes it or not. I understand Kittycorn did not want this large following, nor does kit want more of it, but christ can you fucking do something?

I don't know why people aren't talking about this.

holy fucking shit youre right. ive noticed that too but i didnt wanna bring it up because i know that would make me seem "desperate" to "attack kit" or something but yeah. the ONLY thing ive seen kit do to raise awareness is post an announcement with the arab.org link in the comet caring club server. yknow the one that most fans DONT EVEN KNOW ABOUT since its closed off? yeah. no public statement or anything. no tags in any bios, no watermelon emoji, nothing. COMPLETE SILENCE on anything that isnt kits own comic. fucked up, especially since the sparklecare blog is without a doubt kits biggest platform.

there was this fanart of uni holding the palestinian flag and it was really accurate to the official artstyle, i thought it was official when i first saw it. and it had a shit ton of reblogs, including me on my main. i recognized so many names scrolling through the list. but wanna know who i DIDNT see? thats right, the official sparklecare blog. kits either ignoring it completely or actively dancing around the subject, which is NOT GOOD.

i am in no way trying to accuse kneeby or anyone on the sparklecare team of being a zionist, but i would definitely like to highlight the blatant ignorance the official blog has shown. this isnt the only time ive seen kneeby act this way, as kit also has #blm #acab in kits twitter bio but from what ive seen kits done absolutely nothing to actually raise awareness to said causes, which rubs me the wrong way since im black myself. however now kneebys completely avoiding doing anything, not even a hashtag anywhere. just a single announcement in a private discord.

and yes im putting fanart and au tags on this post, people need to notice this. do better.

#free palestine #free gaza #from the river to the sea palestine will be free #sparklecare hospital #sparklecare fanart #sparklecare uni #sparklecare barry #barruni #cometcare au #cometcare oc #cometcare fanart #.txt

[broomsticks]

today's hp fandom excavation fun: the hp_essays livejournal comm

1) When will the fandom end? posted by (ljuser)vegetasbubble on 07 December 2007

As much as we (any of us) hate to admit it, the Harry Potter fandom will one day (hopefully not one day soon) come to an end. Authors will write thier last ever fanfiction, draw thier last ever fanart, and put down the pencil and say "Thats it." Its a stage of life that no one, (I am one of those people), wants to see. The end of a generation, so to speak.

i was especially amused by this given the recent stats by destinationtoast that had HP as THE fastest growing fandom (and second largest to MCU overall) on AO3 in 2022.

anyway, virtually all the comments disagreed, pointing out the longevity of many many many other literary and movie/TV fandoms.

interestingly, though, i don't think i saw much note of how specifically groundbreaking HP was. aside from this:

Aside from the complete falsity of this claim, I'd rather pursue a new line of thought. In the past few years we seen the HP fanfiction exponentially grow being one of the hugest on general fanfiction websites, spawning huge websites in general for one specific IP and even within the fanfictiondom having different sub-sections, (such as slash, a particular ship or adult) of fanfiction having moderately large collections of works on their own. This is basically a testatment to HP being on of the biggest franchises of this generation to be able to generate such an incredible amount fandom, not to mention an almost serendipitously bring together the forces capitalism, luck, forture, marketing, publishing and talent to make it such a huge hit. The question I pose is to what degree will this fandom die down if at all? Obviously some people will hand up their brushes, mice and pens to abandon contributions to the monster than is HP fandom; but just as the longevity of slash Star Trek fics and LOTR fan art; to what extent will HP fandom survive? Does the content of being a youth fantasy or children's coming of age story have a bearing on how long it will last, when it will last and how slowly (or quickly) the fandom will die down?

this observation on the cyclical nature of fandom was fascinating too:

Hah. I used to ask myself the same question the first time that I was in a fandom. (Tolkien´s Silmarillion) People were writing everything off and exhausting all the good ideas by doing them over and over. Eventually, the people I knew grew tired, and I grew tired too, so most of us left. Years later, however, I suddenly had an impulse to go back and write some more… and guess what I found. New people had taken the place of the old, and the old fic ideas, the old controversies were coming up again as if they were new. Because for those people, they were new. They had not been there back when we wrote and discussed, and most of them had none or little knowledge of what had been done. Fandom repeats itself just like history, because new generations come, and they do not know what has been done before. And, as is the case with history, research about the past is a minoritary hobby. Do you read all the posts in a forum when you join? Or the mails in a mailing list that has been going for seven years? Well, it´s the same with the people who suddenly read Harry Potter and decide that they like it… they will start from zero, and probably read some classics that a friend reccomends to them, but they will not spend their first fannish months reading everything that has been already done, yelled, discussed, squeed and kept saved in Potter sites years before. They will spend them writing feverishly, noticing things, squeeing, yelling and discussing on their own- just as the others once did.

other Very Good essays:

2) Participatory Interpretation; Or, How Fanon Showed Me My Canon by gjules, posted 10 Sep 2004

Partly because of the size and complexity of its universe and partly because of its large and varied cast, the Harry Potter fandom has one of the widest spreads of potential interpretation… So how are we to take the author's intentions into this? As interesting as auctorial intent is in extra-textual interpretation, it still can be misleading. Authors are aware of their creation on many levels, and not all of those levels are consciously accessible. That's one of the strengths of the beta reader: they're not telling you what to do-- they're telling you what you've done.

For me, for example, rereading the books after finding HG/SS was an exercise in reinterpretation. Incorrect reinterpretation, reinterpretation informed and created by my hopeless enjoyment of Sevmione, I have no doubt, at least in light of the probability of that particular OTP occurring in future canon-- but still an interesting perspective on a given text which I might otherwise never have considered. Naturally, this leads to accusations of fanon muddying the waters of the original canon, making things confusing, blinding the fanfic reader and writer to what's really going on. I don't buy this. I would argue that instead, the reader who takes diverse perspectives from fanfic back to the original canon is instead more likely to see all of the possibilities, is less likely to be blinded by the initial assumptions anyone draws when encountering a text.

I've found that reading fanfiction often shows me the assumptions I've unconsciously held about canon. In my view of canon, Snape is more often the tormented hero, and Harry often closer to being in the wrong-- but the different views I have read of fanon Snape show me the other ways other readers see him.

This discussion eventually leads to a disturbing question, however: can all views of canon be considered equally privileged?

a response:

Short answer: no. Why? Because not all views of canon can be equally supported. If your view of canon can be demonstrably shown to contradict something like a significant point of the text, it is weakened. If you have an analysis of canon that fails to account for some major features of the text, or is contradicted by them, it is less priviledged than an analysis which is able to comphrend more things. The completeness criterion is one that I've found is applied across a lot of topics of analysis, from literature to hard-core music theory (yep, there is such a thing).

---

3) a lovely (if slightly ranty!) tonks character study meta:

The Deconstruction of a Miss Nymphadora Tonks by theregoesyamum on 09 Apr 2006:

1. She's direct. 2. She's intelligent. 3. She has a sense of humour. 4. She hasn't got a rotten bone in her body. 5. She's irreverent and unconventional. 6. She's a Black by blood, if not by name.

go read it in full! keeping in mind the fandom post-HBP was full of massive tonks-related wank (alluded to in the (mostly good! worth reading!) discussion here).

---

4) i'm sad this post (Fanfiction Writing Style and Stylistic Trends by ignipes, posted 04 September 2005) doesn't seem to exist on the internet anymore (yes, i did try wayback machine)

---

5) no shortage of peter pettigrew meta -- though a lot of these were written pre-DH, some even pre-OOTP and pre-HBP. interesting reads, but none i felt were especially notable.

#hp fandom history #hp meta #fanfiction meta #nymphadora tonks #canon compliance

[spyroforlife]

23!

23.What work of yours would you like to have the biggest impact on the fandom?

Ooh.. tbh that's a tough one because I don't necessarily WANT to have a big impact on fandom at all, I'm just out to write self-indulgent lil things I enjoy and hopefully get feedback from people who come across my writing and also enjoy it, I write for myself but I also love discussing my works with others.

Storytime but I once had a very impactful fanfic, though this was while I was in the Gravity Falls fandom and it was midway through season 2, a VERY active time to be in the fandom. I wrote a BillDip fanfic called Payment in Blood that was pretty much just spawned from me drawing some stereotypical dark!Dipper corrupted by Bill Cipher artwork, and I thought. Hey I could turn this into a story. So I did, and what started out as a needlessly violent and gorey dark fic written for shits and giggles gained a huge following, to the point that you probably couldn't be a BillDip fan in late 2014 to 2015 and not know about it. I had people giving me suggestions to incorporate into the storyline and popular artists were drawing fanart for me, and when I showed up in art livestreams people would get all excited about me being there and want to discuss the story with me

Of course in livestreams I always made sure to gently redirect attention back to the artist, it felt rude to talk about my own stuff while someone else is sharing their art process with us, but it was really overwhelming tbh?? It was a LOT of attention to have on me and I felt a lot of pressure to make sure the story was absolutely perfect, and I think by the end I was really running out of steam and struggling to wrap it up. I DID manage to finish the story, it even got a sequel, and looking back on it I'm satisfied with what it is. And the story inspired a lot of new stories and artwork and I love that so many people got inspired to create because of PiB. But I'll always remember that as a very strange time in my life

So I guess what I'm getting at is that while it's fun to THINK about having a popular work that has a lot of impact on the fandom and everyone knows about it, having experienced that before, I can honestly say I can take it or leave it. I LOVE when I can inspire people to make things, if someone gets an idea from something of mine and wants to spin it into their own story, absolutely! Please! And I love having discussions about the characters and their choices, and about my planning, and ideas that were considered but ultimately abandoned, etc. Having a popular fic is fine. But idk. I don't think I'd like it if a story of mine got so popular that other people who aren't interested are getting bothered about if they've read it. I wouldn't want discussions about it dominating a tag that should be more general. I certainly wouldn't want to get harassed over a story of mine, or worse, someone ELSE getting harassed just because they openly enjoyed it. I can handle rude Internet tough guys. But I would never want other people being attacked because I made something popular and people liked it and other people think that's bad

idk if that makes sense but yeah. Sorry if this is really rambly, it's just that I genuinely am unsure if I want to make an impact on fandom, instead I just kinda like being in my own corner and if other people wanna come into my corner and hang out, that's great! But I don't really need to make anything that EVERYONE knows about. While there's good sides to that, there's negatives as well, so eh. I just don't know.

But as an apology for such a long-winded answer. If I did need to choose one to have an impact. You know what.

Triple Life because omegaverse (sorta) Life series season is SUCH a ridiculous fucking idea and I'm so glad for the post that made me go "haha what if" and then actually write it. I think it'd be funny if people were doing like. Analysis and fanart and shit about this story of mine in particular. Look at my smutty Life series fanfic, boy

#youvebeenjynxed #mcyt #triple life #trafficblr #trafficshipping #ask games #writing #my writing

[ben-the-hyena]

For the Hate Thing, 3 and 10?

3. Any fandoms that don’t appeal to you?

Whenever I look at HH, HB or Encanto content I become very angry even if obviously I don't bully people for what they like so I just move on, but I HATE these franchises so much seeing them getting love and seeing characters I find loathable be turned into cutie blorbos makes my blood boil. Also whenever I look from a distance at the TOH because it never interested me (andthemorepeoplepraiseittoberepresentativeasitssolequalitythelessIwanttowatchit) and SU and ML because I used to love them but they played with my feelings and went a way I really hated so I am bitter but torn with good memories. Also as much as I LOVE TDC and ATLA and do love fandom content from it I sadly am a bit cold towards their fandoms in general. TDC because is unfortunately became very toxic with the biggest number of bad personal meetings in a fandom I ever had with popular self victimizing whiners who preached to their cult followers how me and others were evil for disagreeing, and ATLA because I hate how most of its fans are super snobbish about their franchise they consider to be the best ever and are in denial about how ATLA is mostly good solely for its script writers whereas its 2 creators can't weite for shit and when they do like the comics and LoK it sucks ass but they still praise it because it has a pretty package and feel superior by comparing it with other franchise that have nothing to do with it except the title which is already an old pre-existing word

10. Any fandom you’re ashamed of being in?

HM/PM. OK SO I AM PLAYING WITH WORDS, IT IS NOT ABOUT HATE I JUST NEEDED TO VENT ONE THING ABOUT MYSELF. Ok so not ashamed per say, and not toward it, no no this fandom is very healthy for now, fun, funny, neither too popular nor too obscure, it has the uniqueness to have several lores/canons so you are allowed to make up your own picking elements from here and there, in short it's a haven for imagination to the point it was one of my first Tumblr fandoms and my very first followers was a HM related blog (thank you @asktheghosthost I never forgot you I just never fekt brave enough to start a conversation >.>). No, no I feel ashamed because of MYSELF in that fandom X'D As a post I reblogged yesterday rightfully pointed out, despite being about murders and suicide this fandom is very pure with hardly any swear, nsfw content and risky jokes. Yet EVERY SINCE I joined that fandom I have made steam headcanon posts, sex jokes and sus fanart with words that don't hold back (AND I CONSIDER DRAWING SHIPPY NSFW) as well as recently a very dark HC of the Phantom feeling incestuous lust for his own daughter. I act super differently from most of the fandom to the point I had been banned from the DA fanclub oncr for having posted a shitpost of Ezra pointing at a hole on my piece of paper saying "I made that hole with my dick" and got me back because I apologized and didn't know that would be forbidden XD No really I just have a risky sense of humor and am kind of a perv for almost every fandom I am in, and if ghosts even can still eat, drink, sleep and other stuff they absolutely don't need to do anymore just because they want to, why not fuck ? AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAND... As I had said, fans base themselves on different canons mixed in with their own ideas to make their fanons, so do I. But mine strays so far from several canon elements and other general ideas fans share that sometimes I feel like I am a fraud x') I HC stuff nobody HCs : Master Gracey is Emily's father, Constance is her aunt and never owned the Mansion, most of the characters died on the same night of 1877 after a curse from unknwon sources, I use names nobody uses... We are allowed to (like in all fandoms you can but here this one fandom IS made for that for how many lores it can hold) yet even if I have fun I sometimes feel ashamed when I see more "general lore friendly" fanons that essentially just changes a few thing from one canon and it makes me wonder if I truly love the Mansion for what it is then to their eyes then. Especially when I read remarks from the fanon wiki in the pages of my own comics that precise "once again Ben-the-hyena base herself on nothing". I know I may be reading too much into it, but it almost feels like other fans may think I "fanon it wrong" and I wonder if this is that side thoughr that had me contribute so little about this fandom these years

#ask #anon #moi #haunted mansion #phantom manor #asktheghosthost #avatar the last airbender #helluva boss #hazbin hotel #the owl house #encanto #strangely the cuphead show and Ducktales anger me and I hated their last 2 seasons and yet I am not mad seeing content and love it #steven universe #miraculous ladybug #the dark crystal #lol #fandom #fans don't look

[willowedwisteria]

i know that i should be saying this to pink but after what shes been through i ought to give her some space since shes got a busy life but like-

so i decided to uh look for her source of inspo which is you-

can we talk about the many achievements she did during her time in tumblr like how she singlehandedly manage to revive the cookie run fandom with her SACRK AU

how she manage to get popular writers look at her genshin works on her previous account

how she made fanart and submitted them to you despite her artstyle not being on the anime side which the hate anons like to shit on

how her quotev story breaks the norms of the genshin quotev cliche stories by getting your villain darling au to quotev cause she wasnt comfortable writing a long story on tumblr

and dont forget her latest work of having her only pokemon post at the top of the pokemon x reader page that one time

and of course her biggest achievement...

her sending you the ask that birthed the villain au when she was an anon.

like i said, i know i should be saying this to pink, but given her posts about how she was not going to write anymore HERE due to feeling like a 9-5 worker and the hate anons shes been having months and even on her previous blogs, i was surprised that despite all that, she still hadnt given up on writing completely. and i thought, wow, wisteria mustve have motivated pink that much despite being younger than her.

but this also should be a lesson to everyone else >:(((

you shouldnt treat writers like they're just workers in a retail shop! they're writers that have a passion on making imaginations come true! not only that, they have lives outside of tumblr.

if they say they're going to delay/go on a hiatus/etc, be understanding! dont demand for more content when they got 100+ asks in their inbox! dont rush them when some of them have school and college to deal with!

thank you for coming to my ted talk and im sorry for clogging your inbox

-long time lurker anon am sorry

Oh my gosh, I genuinely cried reading this.

@byulla-ponk <3

I have a few things I wanted to say about each paragraph.

1. I'm glad you're thinking about her space and probably the ridiculous amounts of asks that are in her inbox. I'm grateful to people like you and I'm sure there are many out there who feel the same way.

2. I'm very happy and even proud of Byu-byu's (Pink's) achievements. She was very aware of what she was writing, she knew when to stop the moment CRK started getting involved with NFTs. Reviving the CRK fandom in Tumblr isn't an easy task and I'm so happy about her getting the attention she deserves.

3. Normally, as a writer myself, I don't actually read much. The fact that other writers actually read Pink's works is an amazing feat on its own, not to mention that I wouldn't be surprised if someone mentioned that they were inspired by Pink.

4. I was always happy to receive fanart and I personally have no right to judge someone's art style because I don't draw myself and I have no idea how to. Plus, every artist has their own style. Even if it isn't too appealing to the eye, everyone can still appreciate art.

5. I was definitely surprised to find out that someone went all the way to quotev and STILL CREDITED AND MENTIONED THAT THEY WERE INSPIRED BY ME. It wouldn't a shocker to me if anyone just took my ideas without crediting me at all, especially on another website.

6. Having your works at the top of a page is certainly remarkable. I know this might sound weird coming from someone who is younger than Pink, but I knew she had potential and, with practice, she could be an amazing writer.

7. Her biggest achievement, her sending me the ask that lead to the creation of what's now the most, if not, one of the most popular AUs in the SAGAU genshin plot hole. It might have been ultimately a misinterpretation on my side, but it was a blessing in disguise.

8. I understand and I'm extremely grateful for Pink's sake that there are anons and fans out there caring for her wellbeing. According to Pink, she's currently focusing on real-life things. I was surprised about her not giving up, but I would totally understand if she decided to go on a hiatus due to the unreasonable hate being thrown at her.

As a fellow writer and Pink's inspiration, I feel like I should look out for her and understand the pressure she might be going through. My encouragement can't compare to how resilient she has been facing against hate anons.

MASSIVE NOTE: If I give you motivation, that doesn't sum up to a reason why you shouldn't quit doing a specific action if you genuinely are tired of it or you just don't like it. Just because I might be your main source of joy and inspiration, that does not mean you shouldn't quit writing when I offer you encouragement IF WRITING IS TAKING A TOLL ON YOUR MENTAL HEALTH, WELL BEING, AND ENERGY.

In my humble opinion, treat writers as human. Some writers will always have this feeling that they should always write out whatever someone had requested to them. Please be considerate about what kind of updates they've been giving, their rules and regulations, your attitude towards the writers, and their mental health.

Thank you anon for sending this ask to me.

-Wisteria

#Wisteriachats

[gwlemonyshenanigans]

Spotlight Friday

It’s that time of the week again! Without further ado, we’d like to introduce…

Iruusu

Where can we find you? (Ao3, FFN, Tumblr, etc?)

iruusu on ao3, @judaru on tumblr, and @sinjuism on twitter 🙇🏻‍♀️

Who is your favorite character?

Duo!! And it’s not even close, I love him 🥺 He is so pretty and kind, but also brave and strong… I am so proud of him 🤧

Which is your favorite Gundam?

At risk of sounding like a fake fan but I’m not really… a connoisseur of mecha LMAO, so I don’t really have a favorite! But I like Deathscythe and Sandrock, maybe? The shotels are cool…

What is your favorite episode or scene from Gundam Wing? (Show, movie, or manga)

I liked when Heero and Duo went to school together! I thought that was really cute!! (I like low conflict stuff, I guess 😪 their slice of life moment…)

What got you into the Gundam Wing fandom?

Well, I survived quarantine (2020) with my sanity intact, but quarantine 2 electric boogaloo (2021) actually pushed me over the edge 😭

I literally saw one tweet in like March about how old gw official art had insane homoerotic energy, and I was like ??? I need to see this. And then I spent the next 2 months consuming more fanfic than I’ve ever read in my entire life 😪

So I’ve only really been into gw for like a year, but it came at a point when I really needed smth to keep going. So I am grateful!! 🥺💕

Which type of fandom media do you prefer to contribute? And to consume? (art, fics, metas, etc.)

I really love reading fanfic!! A lot of old fics in this fandom seem to have been lost, which is so unfortunate, but a lot of what remains is so good 🥺 And creators are still cranking out such amazing content!! I’m so grateful 🥺 I am fed 🤲🏼

In terms of my own content creation, I like to draw fanart and write fanfic, but I’ve been on a bit of a block lately 🤧 Here’s hoping I can pull myself together before the event!! 🤩

What is your favorite trope?

Omg, there are so many 😳 I really love angsty, hurt-comfort stuff (so long as there is a happy ending! 🥺). Other favs include arranged marriage, and things like sharing a bed 😌

But I think one of my biggest ones is omegaverse. It’s a guilty pleasure and there’s not nearly enough of it in this fandom (yet!!!) but I really love it!

Shamelessly plug the work you are most proud of and the reason why!

Kiss of Death is the only GW fic I’ve written so far, but I really am proud of it 🥺 It’s a 1x2 omegaverse fic, with some angst, mutual pining, (and… porn… LOL 😭) It’s one of my first attempts at a smutty fic, and while there’s definitely a ton of room for growth, I think it came together pretty well for what it is 😌

#gundam wing #mobile suit gundam wing #gundam wing fanfiction #lemons #event #gundam wing fanart #fanfiction #lemonyshenanigans2022 #lemonyshenanigans

[chibinoyume]

Creator meme

Thank you @indelibleevidence for the tag!

RULES: it’s time to love yourselves! choose your 5 favorite works you created in the past year (fics, art, edits, etc.) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you brought into the world in 2020. tag as many writers/artists/etc. as you want (fan or original) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome works <3

--

This made me realize once again how much Fandom helped me through the pandemic for a few months - browsing through my own tags there’s so much stuff I’d completely forgotten about!

1) “Jane Doe” - a 3 part comic series (especially the first one)

Post 5x10, where Jane has lost her memories because of the ZIP, and slowly bonds again with Kurt and the team. Originally it was meant to be a 4 to 5 part comic series, but I needed to get it done before the finale aired, and I ran out of time. Since I have the lines written down somewhere, I may write it as a fic at some point, albeit a very minimalist one (and it would count as canon divergent post 5x10), because it was meant to be a comic script.

Still, the first part of this comic took SO LONG and while I can still pick at things I could have done better, I’m proud of it anyway, especially because my specialty are chibi-like drawings. Cute is my cup of tea, serious is haaaard. 

2) “Ever After” - a bittersweet Jeller oneshot.

Technically there is a second chapter to this, but reads more as an epilogue, so this could be read as a standalone (and I don’t know if I’ll ever get to finishing that 2nd chapter! I’ll try, though).

I mostly wrote it for myself as a fix-it fic (sort of) after the series finale. While I stubbornly will stay in happy-ending camp, sometimes when I saw images of the sad-ending, that feeling of dread filled my gut. I had some ideas in my head to narratively justify what happened, including the odd dinner scene, so I rushed to write it out while the Muse kicked and screamed at me to do so.

So in the fic, it starts as Jane collapses to the ground, but not everything is rosy and magically fixed. Both Jane and Kurt have to deal with the aftermath of what happened, and be there for each other as they learn their new normal and start healing from it, in the way supportive partners do ♥

3) Nightmares - a hurt/comfort Jeller fanart.

Post 4x12, this is how I’d imagine things may go, at least sometimes. Jane almost died (again), and even though she is now fine, has her memories and is no longer poisoned, losing her is still Kurt’s biggest fear, and he has nightmares about it in the following days or weeks. Not all the time, but when they show, it hits hard. She’d always try to reassure him as best she can, whispering words of comfort as he mumbles incoherently and apologizes for what could have been.

While some details about it still bug me (why am I like this) I still like this drawing a lot. One of the many scenes of Jeller in bed that are in my headcanon, if only finding good references for Jane’s tattoos (other than her arms) wasn’t such a hassle, I swear I’d have done so many more.

4) Honest screencaps: one & two (I couldn’t choose) 

I just had to lol when I was rewatching season 1 earlier in the year and screencapping things for drawing reference and because of reasons, some facial expressions where just too good not to caption. The ridiculous lines worked even better as a screencap-comic rather than an actual comic, imo.

It’s so much fun.

5) Too tired for subtlety - a silly Jeller comic.

Early season 5, Kurt is still very much a workaholic, even in the bunker. But this time, Jane is not having it. Mwahaha. 

It took a while to find photos of the relevant tattoos, and even then I had to BS a good bunch of them because the images were too blurry to tell xD. I swear if they released an artbook I’d buy it in a second. They could use the same pictures they had in SIOC where Jane was standing up with all her tats, they blur out the necessary bits and have a map of ALL the tattoos, dammit! 

How am I supposed to draw Summer Jeller when drawing Jane in a bathing suit is gonna take 5 hours just to find references D:?

Bonus) :D this ridiculous video (feat Rich’s rescue)

Basically, expectations vs reality.

This tiny video took way more than I’d like to admit lol and it still looks so choppy. But it’s part of the charm, right? lol Even so, the idea wouldn’t leave me alone and I had to do it. And I feel honored and proud that Ennis saw it on instagram xD

***

Hmmm, trying to tag people Amy hasn’t tagged yet! @marv-el-spot @birdsaesthetic @mchellesvanity @whatshouldjustbeours @singinprincess 

Anyone else, feel free to do it! So much fun.

#blindspot #creator meme #blindspot fanart #blindspot fanfic #fandom things #blindspot fam #blindspot fandom #fic recs #my faves #my stuff #yay! #2020 #2020 creations #motivation for 2021 #this was a lovely road through memory lane #also i'm sure i'd have some faves from the gifsets but they're just too many lol #they were such a good stress relief #jeller

[ghost-of-box-five]

Thanks for the tag @1taliart-stargayce

1. What do you prefer to be called name-wise?

Ale, just what everyone calls me in real life tbh

2. When is your birthday?

November 22nd, so like last week...ish kind of?

3. Where do you live?

I happen to live in the land of ‘damn I wish my heater worked properly now that it’s getting cold’, also known as Spain

4. Three things you are doing right now?

So I’m preparing to go out and by a new sketchbook cause I’m running out of pages on my practice one, I’m also doing this and also thinking about the stickers I’ll print to add to the cover.

5. Four fandoms that you have piqued your interest?

This is gonna be fun cause they  have so little in common

-Transformers: From a young age I’ve loved them robots in disguise, I still love them but I’m not active in the fandom and it’s been a while since last time I drew my ocs or any fanart for that matter, but! I do read the comics and rewatch my fave shows from time to time.

-Wakfu: but in a very weird way as in I started playing the game after rewatching the show and then got too invested in the characters I created there and made a whole story on them, and like recently they’ve announced season four and suddenly I’m having the urge to draw my characters again.

-Phantom of the Opera: From a young age, just like Transformers, young me watched the 2004 film cried a lot and I’ve been a fan of PotO ever since, I was so excited when they streamed the 25th anniversary recording that I got really into it again...

-But then CATS happened! as in I liked Cats before but never got into the fandom or too into it, then the movie came, watched the 1998 version too and here we are now! 

6. How has the pandemic been treating you?

Thanfully not too badly!

7. A song you can’t stop listening to right now?

So, cannot name any specific song cause my brain does this thing where it will only allow me to listen to one soundtrack on loop over and over again rahter than one single song. so currently? Hairspray and Cats, the Japanese cast recording of it

8. Recommend a movie

Oh boy, I haven’t watched one in a while actually, so I don’t have any recommendations for you

9. How old are you?

Turned 21 last week...ish

10. School, university, occupation, other?

University, and it’s a ✨struggle✨

11. Do you prefer heat or cold?

Cold, I cannot deal with the heat at all. Cannot sleep at all during the summers, cannot go out without the sun burning me to a crisp, and always am stuck babysitting younger relatives at the pool so not that fun either.

12. Name one fact that others may not know about you?

So I’m extremely shy when meeting others and so appear to be very quiet, but I actually was born with very loud speakers attached to me, but they only work properly when I know you (@/my irl friends and probably online ones i send voice messages to too I’m so sorry about being so loud )

13. Are you shy?

Extremely so, it’s yet another struggle

14. Preferred pronouns?

I go by she/her 

15. Biggest pet peeves?

When people touch my things without permission, even more so when they’ve been explicitly told not to do so. It really does get on my nerves.

16. What’s your favourite “-dere” type?

I don’t have a favourite really. Or like I haven’t thought abour this question until this very moment so I don’t have an answer yet

17. Rate your life from 1 to 10?

A solid 6

18. What’s your main blog?

Had another one but rn would say this one!

19. List your side blogs and what they’re used for.

None! but I’m so tempted to do one for Cats either just to post my Cats stuff or maybe an rp blog for my ocs or maybe both? I’m not sure (but the Cats sideblog is a real possibility tbh)

20. Is there something people need to know about you before becoming friends?

I don’t think there is anything you’d need to know? other than maybe if you wanna chat or something just drop a message, I struggle with starting conversations cause I’m awkward as fuck a first, bu soon enough you’ll be having to deal with me sending you doodles at random moments of the day or showing you weird things I found while walking outside.

and Oh! If you message me and I don’t reply...message me again, chances are I was doing something or somehow I thought so hard about my own reply that I actually tricked myself into believing I’ve actually replied :’D

Now for the tags, not anyone in mind rn so if you see this and want to do it, here you go! I’m tagging you!

#ale screams into the void

[strangeocquestions]

Hi, I hope you dont mind me asking this. How popular is your webcomic? I want to start one myself but Im worried it wont gain any traction and I'll lose motivation :(

I currently have a few hundred active/mostly active readers, 200-ish of which actively follow the webcomic’s blogs and an estimated 100 or so more who read it without following. I only know of these readers’ existence because I know there are several dozens of people who I, friends of mine or followers of mine shared the comic with and who read it actively though they don’t have Tumblr accounts.

I don’t get much fanart or fanworks yet and new creators shouldn’t expect much of that either, fanbases are a difficult thing to build. Then again, my comic is only in Chapter 1 so there’s not much for fans to work with anyway. 

I’ve been hosting my webcomic for about a year, though only around 6 or so months ago did I actually start regularly posting new pages. I haven’t advertised it outside of Tumblr, a little bit on Discord and at school because I’m waiting to move the webcomic to its own website rather than just keep it on Tumblr.

You should keep in mind that I had several big advantages right off the bat, those being having big groups of friends who got invested in my webcomic and shared it with other people, running several blogs with large followings that helped me boost the comic and running a very active Discord server where sometimes I’ll find people interested in webcomics. Without these things it would have been significantly harder for my project to get any traction.

—

Your comic isn’t going to get any traction on its own unless you advertise it to hell and back. Create popular content that will help your accounts grow so that you will have a larger viewer base seeing your promos, get into groupchats, talk about it on several different social medias, etc. It’s frankly the only way to go about it. 

More detailed tips to follow:

-Create memes for big fandoms. From my experience, memes get you more followers than fanart ever will. My most popular fanart  only has 2k notes, meanwhile my most popular fandom meme has 100k notes (decapitated Dumbledore, anyone remember that? haha…………… 😔👊). It’s pretty sad but it’s a reality we artists face.

-Create art memes! That way you can share your art WHILE being funny. I must say though… These are always a hit or miss. One post you may get 10 notes and another you may get thousands. My biggest hit of this genre was this (at 40k notes):

-TAG THE SHIT OUT OF YOUR POSTS PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD IT’S THE ONLY WAY PEOPLE WILL SEE YOUR STUFF PLEASE SPAM THOSE TAGS PLEASE PLEASE PLEA 

-Find forums, groupchats, communities, etc where it would be relevant to share your projects at. Reddit, Deviantart and Discord are quite useful.

-Promote your content by doing exchanges. For example, draw something for every new follower you get or something along those lines.

-Join other artists’ contests and competitions. Maybe even an organization’s contest. The prize doesn’t really matter for the discussion here, but winning will help you get exposure. I am currently participating in a videogame development tournament in my country. If I win, not only will I get a full scholarship, I’ll give my skills and projects exposure.

-You can also just create your own contests and competitions, though you’ll be the one giving away prizes then. Running a contest will definitely get you several followers though, so there’s that.

-If any of your friends shows interest in your project, ask them if they could share it with other people. Don’t put too much pressure on them, like, that’s a shitty thing to do, but asking doesn’t harm anyone.

-Additionally, get out there, meet new people. You never know when you’ll come cross someone who may be interested in helping you spread your project around.

-Don’t stress out. No matter how much time you spend promoting your creation, it’s still going to take ages to build a viewer base. 

—

BY THE WAY (this is in this blog’s FAQ but I doubt anyone reads that anyway) this blog is open to promote other creators’content. Just DM me, send me a link, I’ll check it out and see if it’s appropriate and if everything’s fine I’ll post about it here. It will probably be a small boost but it’s a boost nevertheless. I am more than happy to help any creator in need. 

#long post

[axe-me-darius]

The Struggle for Validation...

I bet your all wondering why I been quiet these past weeks. Really not posting anything.  

With 10 years of league of legends that has come. I realized out of the six years I been drawing/playing/posting/buying/watching/forms things related to Riot(er’s). It hadn’t dawn on me how important this game was. Till things had changed in my life. It wasn’t just a game anymore it’s how I met my fiance. How I coped with my depression. Even beyond the toxic Beauvoir in ‘games’. I was always thinking hey maybe some day Riot will notice me. With all the effort I put into my drawings. I know I’m not a amazing artist. Nor do I want any fame. I just want to be acknowledge by them. Throughout the years I devoted so much of my time and energy. Working / talking along side other fan artist and cosplayer’s that had encountered rioters before they even got and validation. Most of them got it not to long starting into league no more than a year. With them either having a comic , being featured in art, and even the smallest just the things like a or a comment.  

I started to doubt myself, even worst hate myself. ‘ Am I not a good artist?’ , ‘ Is it cause of my content?’. ‘ Is it cause I draw gay things?’ I kept asking these questions over and over again. And my gut always telling me why I am not notice. 

I had some drama that happen in the past. That hurt my reputation drastically. For whatever reason I was attacked on for my art. When I had reached a peak in my art work even getting my art reblogged by Dyrus. (Which by far is the most biggest moments, for such a small artist like me.) I know this doesn’t mean anything to people but it does to me. It finally hit me till I watched this documentary you know the ... “  The Secrets of the Beauty World “ - by Shane Dawson.  Something Jeffery said about people just want to bring you down in the makeup industry. I feel like that’s with artist too in the league community. Nobody wants to succeed and they will do whatever it takes to bring you down. Spread rumors lies. Yeah I admit I am not perfect, and I made mistakes but who doesn’t? I have grown up and I learned to be a better person.  But I cant help but feel hated in this community :( .... I wanted to celebrate 10 years of league of legends. But all I feel like is quitting the game right now, and stop drawing league in general. 

I think Shane Dawson documentary really help me reflect on just solving problems and not just settling. In such I recently started getting into another game and started drawing fanart (just cause my fiance liked the game) and developers  reblogged my art and i felt so much more appreciated I started to cry cause its the most amazing feeling is  to feel appreciated.  I just wanna say a couple things before I end this.  Be careful what you say to others, we all have feelings, and words have a huge impact on others wither you realize it or not. 

And really treat people how you would want to be treated!

Honestly watching the Shane Dawson documentary  “  The Secrets of the Beauty World “ Really empowered me and made me wanna do more for myself as a person. It was really inspiring. And I don’t even use or like makeup. So much I made my own etsy. 

Anyway thank you for your time. 

I hope you have a good day. 

-Darius

#riot #riot games #shane dawson #Jeffree star #The Secrets of the Beauty World #thoughts #vent #league of legends

[gumceline]

another massive bubbline shipper here too say i got mad respect for this blog. as much as i stand by my ship 1000%, i also stand by the fact its totally okay too ship them with other people. i admit the bubbline fandom can be pretty toxic, but alot of us will stand by you. not only are you being super respectful even when you get hate, but you arent straight washing. also the way you looked at the negative parts of our community with understanding in last post, that was real great

oh i appreciate it! I prefer never to judge an entire fanbase by one dude because EVERY fanbase has THOSE people, no fanbase is ever perfect.

I really wished my experience with bubbline shippers had been better, it really was unfortunate to have countless hate, to have people make posts mocking me, to be put on “Lists to block”, not to mention that i legit had supportive friends who were bubbline shippers, but they pretty much turned their back on me, abandoned me, and called me a “Homophobic uncaring asshole”.

It really broke my heart dealing with the stuff i did, and i wasn’t perfect either, but i still don’t think i deserved what that was. I was a kid at the time, and was still having fun and i REALLY wanted to be a part of the fanbase because i love the series and loved the characters, but the fandom just....hated me.

Because i was a multishipper and had different opinions on the characters.

It really didn’t matter to them that i also shipped the characters with other female characters, or i said myself i don’t consider them straight. Because the fandom didn’t really care, they took one look and decided nothing i said mattered.

Being in the star fandom is widely different because the biggest ship there is Starco, a MXF (Which i personally don’t really like but that’s just me), and my favorite ship was...and still is Tom and Marco, because i love their chemistry so much and i genuinely consider them to be a much more believable relationship then the romance they wrote for star and marco.

And trust me, it’s always annoying if you don’t ship the most popular ship and like another pairing more but are succumbed to it everywhere regardless of the characters themselves.

But me not shipping star and marco didn’t make me someone who hated straight people, so i don’t think it’s collectively fair to tell anyone who may of liked marcy or bonnie with finn or maybe they ship them with a male oc of theirs....hate lesbians or were just homophobic.

it’s Like if i took finn out of his (Maybe) relationship with huntress and shipped him with....Tiffany (Who is a male character)...that wouldn’t mean i suddenly hated all straight couples and think finntress should burn.

That’s still a huge leap to jump to and extremely dangerous because you’re collectively accusing someone of something serious without really knowing much more about them then “They like this ship”.

Without any knowledge of them outside of that.

You could effectively damage their rep and make their time in the fandom a living hell out of something minor or something you just assumed, i would know.

I welcome progress, i am quite happy for the bubbline shippers who got their ship, heck...i’m STILL mad that we didn’t get poly tom x marco x star on star vs and felt VERY baited by the crew on that.

but even though i am happy for those people, i don’t think it’s validation to beat up on other shippers either, it does nothing for anyone’s case to do that. If the people are actual bigots who are actively acting terrible and throwing around nasty words and doing terrible stuff, then by all means, call them out.

But people who are just causally shipping stuff for fun? In a way it just feels like using them being a gay ship as a weapon against everyone else, because if they disagree with you and have a different opinion you can effectively boil them down to a bigot and no one might question it...especially when it’s the vast majority.

And that should not be acceptable to do, i ended up hearing from a friend of mine that this fandom actively started purging out other creators for having opinions people didn’t like, and now people are starting to regret that they shunned out so many members of the fandom based on things that were probably incredibly trivial in the long run.

And i get it, it’s an important ship, but it’s important as a rep of that ship to be respectful to others, because if not what you’ll end up doing is turn people away. I would like to be more celebratory of your success in getting the ship canon, but it makes it harder if i’m getting several messages asking when i’m deleting my “Hateful” blog because bubbline was now canon.

I’d like to get along with and support these people, but they don’t want to try and support me and have almost just decided to hate me and it sucks, and there’s not much i can do. That’s why i am thankful for those who don’t just immediately decided to judge me and want to know more about my views on the characters. 

This of course does not apply to the community as a whole, not everyone is acting like this, but it is a problem and it has consequences and i hope the fandom does work on it in the future. Please do better in the future.

Now when it comes to shipping, I have my limits personally, like if the characters have canon sexualities i tend to stick to those sexualities, i for one, have a oc that’s gay. I effectively tell others if they make fanart with him for fun that’s great and i love it, but i want his sexuality respected if ships are involved.

Since the AT ones are left in the air, it means i am left to come up with my own ideas, so that’s what i do. I think everyone should be allowed in that regard to have their own interpretations, marcy could be bi, lesbian, ace,pan, ect and all of those are perfectly acceptable headcanons.

i don’t think one should be held superior over another.

I’ve never looked at Marcy or PG and said “Oh yeah, these two are so obviously straight”, they’re about as straight as a bent nail. XD The people who say this stuff clearly don’t follow me to know that they’re not treated as straight here and i think that’s just frustrating because it’s attacking for completely incorrect information.

And the main problem i think i have, like the biggest issue, is i see the F&C characters differently.

Because i know where the fandom is getting this impression people who these other pairings are homophobic is coming from, it’s because most of the fandom doesn’t really see those characters as much more then well...GB characters.

If i saw tomco, and one was turned to a girl to avoid them both being boys, i would be annoyed, i would, i wouldn’t assume the person was homophobic without other evidence but i’d be annoyed. (I mean for all i know it could be an au and i could be mistaking the situation entirely)

What makes this different for me, is because for one, these aren’t fan-characters, the fans didn’t make a genderbent world and design these characters for fun or anything. These were show characters, that were in episodes and have their own comics and all that.

The way the show approached them for me, makes me feel like they’re kinda misjudged, and people don’t have to agree with me on that fact. But i just feel like between them being fanfiction characters ice king made up, the fact their canon is different, the fact the characters do things the F&J characters don’t do, i just can’t help but feel like treating them as if they were something fans did for fun and have no difference outside of their gender is not the right approach for them.

(I mean ice queen died in one comic and has her own unique origin story which is apparently tied to cake’s, flame prince apparently speaks cat and is the most nervous and awkward cutie I've ever seen, gumball is apparently a card wars superfan and legit takes it WAY too seriously, i just can’t really look at these characters and say “Oh, these are all just Ice King, Flame Princess, and Princess Bubblegum but the opposite gender”).

I feel like the show does enough with them,and had a unique enough approach, that i feel like they should be judged as different characters. Like the redraws of regular episodes with the F&C characters are cute but they’re for fun and probably not what ice king wrote for them in his weird stories.

Like i can’t imagine ice king knew PB so well he made sure gumball had her entire backstory and motivations.

And i feel like the people who do enjoy these ships, heck, ALL FOUR of these ships, feel the same way i do. I’m sure some could def be shipping them for the wrong reasons, but i can’t help but think it’s less about their gender and more that other people recognize they’re different and have considered the different dynamics...like they would if they were shipping any other pairing.

And people don’t have to agree with any of us on that, but i don’t think the alternative should be to accuse us of something so heavily either.

These days i have newer friends who like bubbline who are chill with me, and yeah that’s cool, and i personally don’t really draw the ship myself because i’m still not too comfortable in the AT fandom or with the community right now....the situation with it never leaves me feeling safe frankly.

But we get along, they’re lovely, and the shippers who like bubbline but support the blog are also lovely people and i adore them.

At the end of the day i just want to have fun, i’m fine being in a small subsection of the fanbase and who knows, maybe i have gotten people to think about the F&C characters in a new light, i’m not sure.

But i hope maybe at some point the fandom can chill down and we can support each other without turning it into...whatever that entire situation is. Because i don’t want to be fighting with that community and would prefer to get along with them, but only time will tell.

But thanks for the support! I wish you the best ! I sometimes still have a lot to learn but i hope throughout this whole thing I've gone about it as respectful as possible.

I love the show and all the characters and the fun ships and relationships, i hope someday in the future i can be comfortable enough to get back into the fandom as much as i used to be! ^-^

[phoenotopia]

2019 October Update

Woops, I slipped by my stated blog date since I thought September had 31 days for some reason. So here's the end of September update, 1 day late.

--------------------------

Writing... And more writing.

That captures the majority of what transpired the last 2 months. The biggest cutscenes have been scripted as well as most towns, so we're really close... I estimate that the writing will conclude within the next 3 *weeks* and we will actually have a game that can be played from start to finish... Don't get too excited though, because then begins the game's vigorous playtesting phase and more polish. And since I've never launched a commercial game before, the next steps (PR, marketing, lot checking, ESRP rating application, trailers recutting, release date finding, etc) are uncharted territory. The only experience I have is launching a flash game 5 years ago, and that was a lot quicker and a lot less complicated... And so, I can't gauge how long it'd take nor give an accurate release date yet. However, as soon as I do know, it'll be sure to post it here first!

--- COMPUTER BROKE DOWN ---

Among the events that transpired in the last 2 months, my computer actually broke down. It would manifest as the computer shutting off about 10 minutes after turn on. And this was really worrisome because if my computer croaked, it would be a huge blow to the game's development. The time it would take to restore the specific dev environment I had set up would be considerable...

Luckily, it was repaired after 4 days of intense troubleshooting. I'll spare you the long list of events that transpired, but eventually my brother and I were able to narrow the problem down to non-spinning fans on the graphics card. I was able to zippo-tie two chassis fans together, and insert them below the Gfx Card's heat sink. Much cheaper than replacing the whole graphics card!

(please hold until the game's done)

--- MORE PLAYTESTING CHANGES ---

I'll discuss here some additional fixes/changes to the game based on my brother's previous playthrough (still going through that list, heh...)

F. Remember you can climb roots

I remember from a public demo I attempted (3 years ago?), that a lot of people got stuck at these roots, not realizing they could be climbed. Since then, we did a few things to ensure that the first encountered roots would be climbed. The roots' colors were brightened so they would stand out. A character, Ernest, comments that others have climbed the roots. And finally, standing in front of the roots will cause the "Press UP" tutorial prompt to appear.

So how did my brother fare when I did the playtest 2 months ago? He climbed the roots, thankfully. He climbed the next few sets as well. However, later on, in a dungeon, he forgot that climbable roots were a thing. Back to square one. So there's a lesson here... Even if you teach a player something, there's no guarantee that it'll stick.

So in the picture above, you can see my next attempt at an invisible hand to remind the player. In the red circle, notice there are 4 blue dots. These blue dots pulsate wherever there are climbable roots (They're a lot more visible in motion). The idea is to tie an unusual image to an action. I anticipate when the player sees 4 pulsating dots, they'll react by attempting a variety of actions, before eventually concluding that you can only climb them. And that this experience will be more memorable for it - to be conjured up whenever the player sees 4 blue dots. I look forward to observing what happens with the next blind playtester. (Btw, in reading this blog, you have disqualified yourself from playtesting :P)

G. Instant Food Eating

As stated in a previous blog post, the player can't eat from the menu. Food must be eaten in real-time. It's up to the player to find a safe spot to eat, away from interruptions. Some foods can be eaten more quickly, proving more valuable in a fight.

However, what about on the world map?

You can't use tools or items on the world map, which means no healing at all! I saw my brother opening the menu and tinkering around, confident that it could be done. Because why couldn't you?

Indeed... he didn't say anything, but I wrote it down as a feature to be added. And after adding it, found that eating from the menu was  fun! After years of using the new system, to have the old flash system's implementation of healing again was refreshing.

And so I decided to add it as a possible new characteristic of food. There's now a special class of food, "candy", that actually can be used from the menu (world map or no). Rest assured, candy items will be balanced - costing more than regular food, and their healing effects will tend to be less than other more timely items.

(the “eat” subcommand appears for "candy" class items. The candy icon on the bottom-right denotes a candy class item)

H. Fishing Hud finally updated

This wasn't something discovered through playtesting, more of an unfinished task that sat around for far too long. 

(Old fishing hud on left. New fishing hud on the right)

In the old fishing hud (perhaps an example of minimalism taken too far), the fish's health is represented by 10 white dots. In the new fishing hud, the fish's health lines up and mirrors the player's own stamina. Whoever outlasts the other wins!

I had actually been sitting on the finalized graphics for over a year. For some reason, the last 10% implementation of a feature tends to be the most boring. In game development, I find myself jumping around often, working on whatever can catch my interest. That's good for ensuring that the game's development is always moving forward in *some* capacity. But now at the tail end of development, only the most boring tasks are left...

--- WRITING ---

So I mentioned writing. One of the things written in the last 2 months was the entirety of the "monster" village's NPCs. This time I also roped in Pirate (formerly artist, now also writer), since she's quite familiar with their lore having drawn them and their town.

When I wrote trolls, I wanted to give them a unique speech, not unlike the Mr. Saturns from Earthbound. My idea was to capitalize all words and then strip away as many unnecessary words as I could, while keeping the meaning identical.

Pirate then took the result and improved upon it, establishing rules their language could follow to be consistent:

Simplified negatives (no instead of not/don’t/can’t/etc);

Object pronouns replace subject, possessive and reflexive pronouns (me/name instead of I/my/mine/myself). 

No ‘be’ verb or it’s conjugations (am, is, are).

No verb conjugation.

No articles.

(A sample of troll language. Harpy language is similar, but no caps, and a few other variations.)

Another neat thing that happened naturally over the past two months was a construction of a "timeline". The timeline takes the form of a 2D chart, with the major players lined up on the left, and the years up top. There are new characters this time around, and having the timeline as a reference, helps to make sure the lore is on point.

(the timeline, blurred. An internal tool to aid writing)

--- FIVE YEAR ANNIVERSARY ---

Speaking of which, it was the game's 5 year anniversary this past August 20th. Thank you to Firana for reminding me!

Five years... Five Years... T_T (I thought I'd be done by now)

It'd be neat to do a longer in-depth retrospective on this game's long development, but I'll wait for the game to be properly finished first.

--- FAN ART ---

We have 3 lovely fan arts that came in the past 2 months.

(Art by Amaury Lorin)

I like how this picture selectively colors the night sky, comet, and fire. Very artistic! Amaury also submitted a poem (in French). Here it is!

Parmi cette clarté que la nuit seule émet, Au-dessus des radis géants qui s'épanouissent, Nonobstant sans souci les herbes qui frémissent, Sous un ciel calme et sombre, un village dormait.

Éprise de liberté, une puki part Là-bas, quelque part où des prés plus verts la tenant. "Oh, s'écrie un enfant, une étoile filante!" Veille, enfant : pour tes grands yeux curieux seuls, ce soir,

Indifférente au sol précipité sur elle, L'étoile tombe... Écoute, enfant, elle t'appelle; L'étoile : "Suis-je un ange, un messager du ciel?

Avec mes feux, suis-je augure, ou suis-je étincelle? Gloire d'un monde haut, d'une nuit éternelle... Et j'arrive!" --Dors, enfant, tes yeux ont sommeil...

                                                         ...mais demain...

(Art by LittleLys Owo)

Gale smiling and flashing the peace sign. Nice! I like the skillful use of vectors to draw the lineart.

(Art by Shafiyahh)

Shafiyahh, who also drew fanarts in the last update, returns with this cool picture of Gale sporting the katana, a hidden weapon that... JK. I Love the composition of characters, and the flashy background - very anime-esque!

That's all for now. Next update will come at the end of November!

[jinjojess]

One of the main things I get asked about or have mentioned to me is why I don’t as zealously translate things on my blog anymore.

There’s a lot of reasons, some of which I’ve addressed in the past, but they’re kind of persistent issues that don’t only affect me. They affect just about every other fan translator that I’ve had the pleasure of working with and they’re why you don’t tend to see the same people stick around for a long period of time.

This is going to come across as a vent-type thing, and it isn’t aimed at anyone in particular, but just at certain trends in fandom and social media spaces in general, so I’m not calling anyone out or anything.

Like I mentioned before, you tend to notice that a lot of people who translate things for a particular fandom will drift away after a certain amount of time. This isn’t an accident, nor does it necessarily need to be an eventuality. Some people will always move on because they lose interest in the source material, but I’m not talking about that today.

Reason #1: Work and Real Life

The biggest, most persistent issue for me is my job. I work long hours, I have a two-hour commute on a train each day, and my work is very stressful and demanding. Would I rather be translating? Hell yes! Can I support myself doing translations for free? Hell no!

When I was doing really hardcore translation stuff, it was basically me not sleeping. That was a thing I could do because my hours were shorter then and I got long breaks throughout the year. I was home and in my house by 18:30 every night which meant I had way, way more free time than I’ve had in the last couple years.

I’m not in school anymore, nor do I work part time, nor am I figuring things out at my parents’ or anything. I’m also getting older and more tired. That means I can’t afford to be translating a bunch of text for free and sacrificing all my free time and time to sleep. It’s a little unfair to expect me to compete with pro translators, people who work part time, or are in university, or NEETs who happen to be doing translation stuff.

Reason #2: Lack of Motivation/Lack of “Customer Loyalty”

I was going to call this “lack of reward” but there is an inherent reward to doing this kind of work and lots of people have been very vocal and kind about their gratitude, so it’s not necessarily that you never are rewarded.

However, I do need to address the elephant in the room.

Fandom is a fickle and impatient creature. It doesn’t care about quality, it cares about speed. The second biggest reason I don’t try to keep up the pace I was going at a few years ago is because there’s really not any strong motivation to do so aside from my own pride and a handful of people.

Let me try to explain what I mean: when you’re cranking out translations quickly, before anyone else has touched anything, then people will respond well. They’ll reblog your posts, donate small amounts of money, draw you fanart, send you nice messages. The second you stop cranking things out as quickly though, all of that dries up. Yes, a core group of people will stick with you, but the majority of the fandom just kind of moves on and latches onto whoever’s faster.

And it’s frustrating. It’s annoying that I can spend hours and hours and hours putting something together, only for it to get like 50 notes. My DRT summaries have been read by countless people, but the posts themselves have less than 10 notes in most cases. 

People don’t really appreciate that translation is ultimately a creative act--it’s not just a mechanical process of Language In > Language Out, it require you to be creative in your word choices. Also they don’t appreciate the hidden work, like all the money spent procuring the original source material (which I always tried to do since I prefer to be self-reliant like a dumbass), or the formatting, or the TIME. 

Meanwhile, people will reblog visual art that looks similar with no qualms, but if it’s a long translation, they won’t even bother to read other interpretations, much less spread them.

People remember the names of visual artists, and will promote them and yell about how they need to be paid and whatnot, but they don’t tend to remember the names of people who translated things. Fandom just doesn’t do that. Unless you stay relevant and in the public eye as it were, fandom at large doesn’t remember the people who did seminal translations of works.

They don’t have to, of course, but I gotta admit that it doesn’t really make me want to pour hours of my own limited free time into working on something that no one will care about or remember I did after the fact.

Reason #3: Cutthroat Tactics

As you can imagine, when speed is the only thing that matters, the situation turns toxic real quick. While you’ll meet a lot of other great translators, and everyone I’ve personally worked with has been fantastic, but I think the incident that best shows off what I mean is what happened with Yaz and someone taking his raws to release their own version before shslscans did. That happens all the damn time.

While a certain group of people will cooperate and try not to step on others’ toes or be respectful (the reason why I never finished kamase-megane’s DRK1 translation), there will always be other people who just jump in and do stuff and don’t even recognize you--they can’t, because if they do, they run the risk of people going to read your stuff instead of theirs, and as we established, the fandom will only read one translation and nothing else.

There’s also the issue of the audience themselves, who will do things like nitpick everything you post if they don’t like it (which happened to a friend of mine, who ended up having people attack them because their interpretation of the vaguely worded source text didn’t line up with what they wanted to hear). 

There are also people who very clearly want to use you for their own advantage. You can always tell who these people are, because they will be up in your face and promoting you left and right until you need to take a breather, at which point they will drop you like a sack of potatoes and heavily promote someone who is doing the thing they want, but faster. They will also not circle back around and promote your version once you finish it.

The fandom will take your scans and your translations and use them without credit, gaining way more notoriety and attention than you ever could on your own (this happened to me last year on Twitter, where someone took a photo and translation I uploaded to my blog in 2014 and used it to garner LOADS of attention--while the Tumblr post that talked about the tweet credited me, the original thief never did, despite me politely asking).

Fandom will also turn their nose up at anything that isn’t a word-for-word translation. My summaries for the side novels are extremely detailed and I end up translating large passages anyway, and STILL people bitch that they won’t engage with summaries because they’re inferior. r/choosingbeggars much?

Part of the reason that no one remembers the translator or sticks with them if their pace drops is because there’s an unspoken expectation that the fandom is owed the translations. It doesn’t matter who they come from, but clearly someone has to do it, because it’s just a thing that fans are entitled to. That’s mind-boggling to me, who grew up with fan translations as the only way for me to experience a LOT of foreign language media. No one owes you translations of things as soon as they’re released!

Finally, it’s difficult to get your work even seen, because the market gets so saturated; all of the aggressive self-promotion often ignores what other people are doing, either because of sincere ignorance that your stuff exists, or because they’re intentionally ignoring you to make themselves seem like the only option.

Conclusion:

This is not a DanRon fandom problem; this is a fandom problem, full stop.

I can’t tell you what to do, or how to engage with fan translators and their work. This is more just a vent about things that irritate me about the whole scene and to explain why I don’t update as quickly or as often these days. 

I do still want to get my version out there, and I will still do it--I was doing side novel liveblogs and summaries before anyone paid attention to my blog and I will continue on after--but I do ask that maybe you be patient, or you try reading different translations of the same thing to appreciate the various approaches. Remember who translates what and makes sure that you always credit and source. Reblog translation posts, don’t just like them. 

Basically, treat us the way you treat visual artists.

Thanks for reading, and thanks to all the folks who have stuck with me through the years. Everyone who sends me nice asks and who has sent me art or liked or reblogged my posts, I appreciate all of that. You should be the norm, but you aren’t, and so I really love you guys. I’ll have some stuff for you very soon!

#long post #vent #translation #fan translation

[victubia]

I have decided to end the Victubia comic [Please read <3]

I have decided to end the Victubia comic. Please let me explain why.

As some of you know (those of you who has been a part of this from the start), Victubia started as a simple wallpaper project for some of the YouTubers that I loved at the time.

I was unemployed for long periods of time, and depression and anxiety hung all over me. There were times when I didn’t want to get out of bed because I had no good reason to do so. My confidence in myself and my abilities was at rock bottom… but then I started watching youtube.

And I suddenly had a small (but fun) reason to get up and do something. It gave a reason to laugh and smile. Victubia mixed a lot of things I liked at the time, and eventually, I came up with a story set in this universe, staring the YouTubers.

Victubia started as a motion comic, but when I realized it took me way too long to create each chapter, I made the decision to make Victubia into a regular comic.

The Victubia comic has been going on for almost 3 years. And it has been 3 amazing years!!

Before I continue, I wanna thank all of you who’s been part of this journey!! It’s literally meant the world to me, and it gave me back some self-worth and creativity when I hardly felt anything.

So why am I ending it? Well, there’s a lot of reasons, and in a way… I’m not ending the story here. Let me explain.

The last year or so I’ve had thoughts about ending the comic. It came sneaking up on me, but I kept pushing it back down. I didn’t wanna accept the fact that I wasn’t as happy drawing the comic anymore. And more than anything I didn’t want to disappoint the fans and readers of the comic!

You guys have ALWAYS been the reason I kept going! This project started because of the YouTubers, as a thank you for brightening my days, but it continued because of you who read the comic and was invested in the world!

In an attempt to make the comic a bit more fun for me to draw, I tried to work in more original characters (Alma, Edrea Stern, Ryder, Porter etc), because I love making original characters and I felt that they fleshed out the story in a lot of good ways. But I quickly noticed that the interest for original characters in this story (unless it’s a villain) is pretty small and that most people only cared for the YouTubers.

Which OF COURSE isn’t strange at all! This comic is about YouTubers after all! But I couldn’t deny that there became a rift between what I wanted to do with the comic, and what my readers wanted to read.

While I still had a lot of fun with the comic, I felt less and less joy working on this project, which I guess also got reflected in the fandom, because there were fewer and fewer people interested in Victubia. Less fanart and fics, and fewer people going to my art streams or talking in the discord. And you know, that’s okay <3 As someone who’s been in a lot of different fandoms for the last 15 years, I know that fandoms come and go. Interest fade and you move on to something else. I know that’s the reality of it, but let me tell you, it was a bit difficult to come to terms with this when it’s your own fandom, haha! But I HAVE come to terms with it, and the bitter feeling I used to feel is mostly gone.

Another reason is that drawing comics inspired by real people is never a good idea. Part of me knew that going into this project, but I was just too naive and too ignorant to accept it. People change. Relationships and friendships change. And that will always be a difficult thing to adapt to when making a comic about real people. And as much as I still love a lot of YouTubers, I don’t always agree with them (as is the case for most people), but I don’t always wanna feel that I endorse them. Even if I state my own opinions, actions speak louder than words, and the fact that I make a fan comic speaks volumes in a way I don’t want it to. Victubia was always supposed to be a fun and silly fan project, but because the characters are inspired by real people, it’s bound to get difficult at times. And that made the project become filled with anxiety at times, and it really wasn’t good for my mental health. I felt almost trapped in this project at times.

I also don’t want to be known as the woman “who only draws YouTubers”. Which leads me to my next reason to stop the comic;

I want to do more things.

Victubia takes up a lot of my time most days when I’m not working on my part-time job as a preschool teacher or work with freelance jobs, leaving me with almost no free time.

And as a creative, it really brings you down after a while.

I almost never draw anything for myself anymore, not even sketches. I have so many things I want to study! I have so many amazing original things I want to draw, and also fan art. And I have a lot of other projects I wish to make a reality.

I wish to take more freelance jobs and commissions! I want to make my own children's book series! I have an original comic project that I’m dying to spend more time on!

But time is limited.

Looking over my story notes I’ve slowly realized that the Victubia comic would take YEARS to complete, and that’s just too much for me to spend on a fan comic.

“Are we never gonna find out what happened in the story?”

I don't wanna leave you guys hanging, and despite the fact that the comic is ending, I’m still gonna share the complete story with you guys, as I’ve decided to post the rest of the Victubia comic story in script format.

Doing story scripts takes MUCH less time for me to write (compared to drawing the comic), and you guys will still get the whole story. It’s still a story I wish to tell.

I’m going over and writing it as we speak, and it will be released in parts. How many I can’t say just yet.

“So what happens to the Patreon?”

I will still keep my Patreon, but it will transition into a Patreon for most of my creative work.

The Victubia scripts will still be posted on Patreon first before they reach the rest of the public. And I still have a few things I want to post (like a Late Night Bar map).

But eventually, I want to fill the Patreon with original art and fanart, studies, blog posts and sketch requests, to name a few. I will explain more when the time comes.

If you are signed up to my patreon for Victubia only, I totally understand if you want to cancel your subscription. I won’t hold it against you! <3

I will, of course, be eternally happy if you stick around and see the changes that will happen <3

“So is the Victubia Party over now??”

Not for me at least! XD

Honestly, I’m not ready to give up this universe, because I still love this world and all the characters that have been made for it. My own and others and I don’t see a reason to end Victubia as a whole because the comic ended.

The world of Victubia is bigger than the comic, and if people still wanna visit it, it’s always open! <3

I will still create Victubia related work even after the comic script is done, but it will be work I truly want to work with <3

Lastly, I wanna thank so many people! I want to thank all the fantastic people who've been in the fandom for so long! Some of you joined from the very start and made this community so warm, creative and welcoming! All of you who created your own characters and stories and art inside this universe! You are also the reason I kept going with this project in the first place, and without your love and enthusiasm for this project, it would have stopped as a “wallpaper project”.

I want to thank all my lovely, amazing and wonderful Patrons, new and old, who helped make a dream come true and let me work on a project that is so dear to my heart!! Without you, Victubia would have ended a long time ago! <3

Despite the ups and downs, I am SO PROUD of the fact that this project has managed to inspire so many people to draw and write and just be creative in general! <3 It’s so beautiful! I’m also so damn proud that this community brought together so many people, and that people found friends for life, and even love! Many years into the future I hope people can think back on this project and the community with joy. <3

I wanna give a warm and grateful thanks to Vini and Felix for putting so much work into the Victubia Wiki! <3 Thank you for all the time, energy and passion!

I wanna thank all the YouTubers who appreciated this project! You are forever Victubia royalty! <3

Finally, I wanna thank my AMAZING MODS! Old and current!

Who has supported me through it all, and who gave so much of their time and energy to this project! I can never thank you guys enough! You are truly amazing people, and I’m so thankful that you wanted to be a part of this for so long. Asa, Mishy, Jo, Raz, Panda, and Arc... I’m so grateful I can call you guys friends! <3

The last final and very special thanks is to Raz, who not only was my biggest supporter from the start but who became someone so dear to me, someone, that I want to spend the rest of my life together with! <3 Raz, you’ve given so much to the Victubia world that I consider it yours too! So many wonderful stories and characters that always inspired me to create more! Your love and support brought me out of my worst moments and kept me going even when I didn’t think I could. I love you so much and I’m so glad this project brought us together! <3

If you read until the end, you deserve a medal! XD Thank you so much for your time!

If you have any questions or opinions you can leave them in the ask box on Tumblr or send me a message on discord. I will try to answer as many as I can <3

Be on the lookout for the Victubia scripts, and thank you once again for making this something truly special <3

I love you all!

#victubia #important #I love you all <3

[mcrmadness]

Gosh I love the feeling of being an outsider. This has been a huge problem for me like... forever. Or not really even a problem but just something that has occured ALWAYS and there’s not a single thing I can do about it and I’ve got so used to it that I have accepted it that I’ll be an outsider forever. And I’m also isolating myself and leaving myself out of everything because I don’t feel like I’m allowed to be a part of anything.

Like. For example, Die Ärzte fandom is probably the biggest one with this. I loved it so much to be to the concert in Warsaw as it felt like meeting again with a long lost family. But now I’ve again feeling quite lonely as I can’t fangirl with anyone really. And I’ve got used to fangirling all alone. 10 years and only people I could have been talking to are my siblings and my dad (thanks to him I even know about DÄ at all!), sometimes talking to or fangirling to online friends but it’s different when these people do not like the band or at least not as much as I do or when they don’t see why I like them SO MUCH, even if this person also liked them a bit.

I was just browsing my old drawings yesterday. And there’s so many stupid brainsless DÄ sketchings too that make absolutely no sense - I have drawn them while fooling around with my siblings at the time, or maybe alone, idk. And I felt like I wanna show them to people. But they are making me so embarrassed, because I have drawn them when I was a very fresh fan, just 18 or 19 and I spoke no German (now I’m like on the intermediate or almost advanced level) and it’s embarrassing to me to browse those because I have written down phrases or things that were the only things I knew something about, but now, as I understand German quite okay and know a much more about the band itself, these drawings are just getting on my nerves :D And I feel like if I showed them to people, I should do some really long disclaimer about how “I spoke no German at all and they’re stupid as hell but at least I had fun, right?” And well, maybe we can also blame the fact I was just _18-19 years old.

However, I was also browsing those comics I made. It seems to me that I have drawn my first humans-DÄ comic in the early 2010. Before that I had no idea how to draw human comic book characters but I definitely wanted to create something as drawing them all the time as horses or rats was starting to annoy me A LOT :D And I also felt like they’d come off just weird and creepy to other fans lol. (Btw: A veeeeeery long time ago my 16-years-old self draw the guys from MCR as horses and I remember browsing some kind of a forum where was asked what was the weirdest MCR fanart they had seen, and someone said MCR horses, and it’s very likely it was not mine they had seen because I was not the only fan in the world; but somehow I still thought what if it was mine and since then I felt awful for drawing people as animals but I couldn’t stop because I had no idea how to draw humans and I needed to draw something :D)

But yeah, the feeling of being an outsider. It’s also something that... just always keeps happening. If other people have fun without me, I start isolating as I feel like everyone is actually better off me and I shouldn’t bother them and I can’t trust people being genuine when they say they enjoy my company. And I’ve been so lonely lately again that it is never a good thing as I slowly start turning everyone against me. I mean, I start having delusions of people being angry at me for reasons I don’t know just because I sometimes don’t see it when I’m being stupid unless I’m told about it. Maybe it’s the bullying stuff coming back to me. “Maybe if we acit as if this person doesn’t exist, they will give up and move on and leave us alone..?” Also it’s the seasonal affective disorder speaking here a bit.

Another thing to this outsider thing. For example if I think about myself as a DÄ fan, or just anything I like. I never include myself when these “idols” or other people talk about their fans or viewers whatsoever. I’m always like “oh they’re acknowledging their fans? Nice, good for them!” and I’m genuinely happy for that, but I am excluding myself from the word fans. I am a fan, but I feel like I’m this weird outsider individual who’s just somewhere far away enjoying their time and taking part to the overall mood and hype outside of the venue but not being invited to the party, you know? This is why I can relate a lot to the Oingo Boingo song On the Outside. That is literally me...

Another example: DÄ has this song, “Nicht allein” I’m now somewhat aware of the lyrics and this is also something, like, I can relate to many things but here as well I have this feeling “everyone BUT me”. I relate more to lyrics that talk to “you” or about “I” instead of “we” because I feel like I’m not allowed to be a part of any group unless I’m personally told “you’re welcome here”. That’s why I’m this loner who doesn’t really belong to anything or anywhere, I do things on my own and I’ve got used to fangirling alone and I learnt to how to have fun alone and I’m basically imagining that I’m spending time with people when there actually is no one else there.

I think I started having hallucinations and other stuff when I was 14 just from the pure loneliness. I talked about ghosts and supernatural phenomenons a lot and of course the psychiatrists got worried by that (sent me to a psych ward too) and thought I’m psychotic or something. But now I know I was just so lonely and my social needs were so so so low I started creating “people” around me just to have some company. I also had “voices” in my head, I called them ‘crazy one’ and ‘boss one’ and I was talking with them in my head cos I had no one else to talk to nor with and I had a blast. I had online friends but no friends at school and everyone hated me, the place where you need friends the most as a teenager and turning to adults all the time starts to get too embarrassing. And this all stopped once I finally had friends, finished with school when I was 16 and started antidepressants at the age of 17. Now have been without meds for over 6 years, tho.

Anyway, it’s crazy what just loneliness alone can do to one’s mind.

#me #personal #my random stuff #(die ärzte)

[almaasi]

I’M SCREAMING @destielreversebang​ WHY CAN WE ONLY SIGN UP AS ONE

@ tumblr followers -- help me decide whether to WRITE or DRAW for the 2019 Dean/Cas Reverse Bang

~vote here~

i wanna do BOTH but I can only choose ONE:

a) submit art for someone else to write for

this is what my art looks like

would take me 1 day per art piece (I am le tired... and drawing is easier to do when tired than writing)

I can submit up to 3 pieces (but I’d probably do only 1 or 2)

I really love drawing!!! and every time I make something I get significantly better at it

I also really love working with other Destiel authors!!! illustrating fics is basically the only time I make fanart, and I feel like I make better art for other people than I do for myself

but the downside is that the art for this challenge is already done when the author gets to it, so someone would be making something “~for me~” as opposed to the other way around, and I generally prefer making things for other people (partly because I am SO!!! PICKY!!! when it comes to enjoying other people’s stuff??? and mostly because I like making people happy)

I also kinda like working right up to the deadline for creative projects (hell knows why) but if I did art, I’d be done super early and then have nothing to do on this project for literally 6 months

if I post art on tumblr, it either gets a few notes, or hUNDREDS, and there’s no way to know which, so could potentially be disappointing for both me and my author(s) ...(this is a small, insignificant problem but I thought I should mention it anyway, emotions are involved)

I’ve never done a make art > get fic process before, so this would be exciting and new, and was the original reason I decided to sign up for this challenge in the first place

if I sign up as an artist I could also be a pinch-hitter author, which is the ONLY way I can both make art and draw (but it’s unlikely to happen, I’d be severely limited by what’s available, and there would be a time crunch and I’m not a fan of those circumstances)

I already have an idea of what to draw c:

b) choose someone else’s art to write about

this is what my fics are like

fic must be 3k to 50k (but I’d probably keep it on the shorter side)

takes me about 1 hour per 1,000 words (to a max of about 5k per day at the moment... so a short fic could take me between a day and a week depending on my health)

writing is my strongest skill and y’all love my stuff <3

I’d be able to post a new fic on my AO3 which means a lot more people would interact with it compared to my art, and my artist would likely find some new supporters

I’ve never done a choose art > make fic process either!!! so this would be new and exciting!!!

if I get the right art I will be wildly inspired and I will make something awesome. I love working off other people’s creations and adding my own spin (hellooooo, fanfic author)

but I’d be limited by the author’s preferences/squicks, unsure what that would entail

I’m only allowed to make one fic for one person’s art, total

I feel like the final fic+art combo would be more to my liking if I write a fic for art that I picked. because then it’s all my choices, y’know?? so I’d have a lot more control and I generally prefer that

this thing won’t be posted until June so even if I wrote something you’d have to wait ages to see it

BUT I’d get to do the “oh noooo only 24 hours until this posts, gonna finish it and make it pretty” thing, which I LOOOVE

biggest downside of being an author for this challenge: I don’t get to be an artist for this challenge >:( and I’m v. sad about this ngl

~VOTE AND CHOOSE FOR MEEEEE !!!!~

#Destiel #Destiel reverse bang #Elmie writes things #Elmie draws things #DeanCas #post of postiness #polls #SERIOUSLY THIS IS SO MADDENING #I'VE HAD THE SIGNUP FORM OPEN FOR A WEEK AND A HALF