#idk how to feel about Bluesky

[paper-starz]

JULIE!

Been working on a new rendering technique! And who better to test it out on than Julie Joyful herself?

(Read more for a close-up!)

#welcome home #welcome home puppet show #welcome home julie #wh julie #julie joyful #my art #artists on tumblr #digital art #I’ve been also trying out different platforms too! #like Bluesky and Instagram #emphasis on trying tho #idk why but the cropping SUCKS in instagram #it keeps chopping Julie’s head off! #and Bluesky… #eh #idk how to feel about Bluesky

[chipped-chimera]

Sometimes I contemplate making smut fanart/content, but then I remember we live in a puritan tech dystopia and where the everloving fuck would I post it these days?

#kerytalk #I miss golden age tumblr #there's pillowfort but it's ... kinda dead #and the website formally known as twitter I am not touching for a multitude of reasons #a big one also being anything on there can be used for Muskrat's AI models now #idk what the fuck about bluesky but I don't have an invite for it anyway so that's moot #this brainworm brought to you by - #'I am sick of how so much fanart smut content of women feels gross and male-gaze-ey' #and 'I AM A 30 YEAR OLD AUSTRALIAN WOMAN STOP MAKING ME OBEY YOUR STUPID AMERICAN ANTI HOLE LAWS' #this has been a tag rant #nsft

[lycanwlf]

seeing a lot of ppl moving to cohost & bluesky and im wondering if its worth it ?? i made an account on bluesky just to follow some trans artists but i dont really want to just. jump ship to a completely different platform right now

#andre.txt #dashboard unfucker is gone </3 #i also saw smth about how both cohost and bluesky have their own issues... idk #if i do make the jump i don't think im gonna do it unless i feel like it's genuinely the best option #cause rn it's just the. novelty that's making me interested.

[drchucktingle]

let the message bake

someone on way of bluesky was asking chuck about WRITING PROCESS for novels and it is good talk so i am going to but my answer here

they said: I respect ur trot as a writer and I was wondering if u wrote in a straight line from beginning to end or if u start in the middle/end and fill in? I've got a great story idea but idk how it starts, so I'm not sure if *not* writing from beginning to end would even work.

for full novels i have 'ideas' (high concept) and 'messages' (WHAT i want to say) and these tumble around in head until crashing into a match to unlock something more. then i tell story in my head until i know it perfect. finally i sit to write it out in one straight line over a few weeks

so ideas and messages could lurk in brain for years, even decades. once the match happens i am telling myself story in head and working out details for a month or two. then when it is time to write the novel it takes about 3 or 4 weeks because i know story like back of hand. that is process

i always write MESSAGE FIRST and will not write until i have something important i want to say (sometimes message can change during process but this is where i start). by separating IDEA and MESSAGE i give time for each to evolve into something special in its own right

then when they come together it BLOOMS into more than sum of parts. for instance i have high concept horror idea i have loved for around ten years. but i did not have a 'what do i want to say here?' then recently i had big feelings about BI ERASURE and realized 'whoa that idea is PERFECT vehicle.'

on other hand with something like BURY YOUR GAYS the message and the high concept idea happened at basically the same dang time. these two trotted out so close on the timeline it was almost a whole piece.

so the pace of creation can change from story to story, but i always allow each half the time to bake until its ready

#writing #love is real #chuck tingle #tingleverse

[iraprince]

i can't really afford to leave here. twitter used to be my main haunt — it's slowed down to a terrifying degree, to the point where i've felt immensely relieved that i never abandoned tumblr. despite mostly equal follower counts (though who knows how many are bots, on both sites), my stuff now gets like... easily 2-4x the traction on here as on twitter. and when i talk abt traction/engagement, please know i'm not talking about "my feelings get hurt if i don't get likes :(" i'm talking about like. ppl seeing my art, and especially seeing announcements about projects i'm working on etc, is how i get jobs and make enough money to support myself. including people who ALREADY FOLLOW ME and WANT to see the art, which is what has specifically been scuttled on twitter

but now, uh, lol. are we just going to keep getting kind of juggled back and forth between two slowly dying sites

i have a cohost that i haven't set up yet. i have a bluesky that i'm struggling to remember to use. it's already hard to keep up social media and realistically i don't think i can seamlessly just add two more on top, and like i said above i can't afford to abandon the existing audiences i've built up on tumblr and twitter, where all my work comes from, and Hope that enough ppl are going to follow me to new sites for me to keep going

i want to make a personal website. i want to make a mailing list/monthly newsletter. i should have been working harder on those things, we've been seeing the writing on the wall for years. but i am at the limits of my energy and ability just doing enough to make a living every day no matter how casual i am about it and the fact that all of this hard work can be destroyed just by websites deciding to blow themselves up is extremely exhausting

idk. i don't want to end this on a totally miserable note. thank you for being here and for supporting the artists you follow as everyone repeatedly tries to destroy our livelihoods, genuinely

[velnna]

Since you probably use more social media than most people, I was curious on what you think of the ones u use, especially now that blue sky is open to the public

Eh, I'm not super well versed on them these days because I mostly use them to respond to notifications, post and disappear, plus I have notifications filtered everywhere so I don't keep track of engagement. ESPECIALLY with bluesky, I've never even opened the general timeline there 😅

Twitter is still my favourite social media and the one I use more seamlessly. I think I see value in it because it's not primarily meant for visual posts and there's people from a bunch of different fields and industries engaging with whatever all at once, plus the line between commenting on a post and making a post yourself is blurred which gives for some funny interactions. It used to intimidate me but now I'm just chilling.

Bluesky I guess is supposed to be the same thing? But I can't bring myself to engage with it idk. Back when it started I could see that the most active people there were the ones actively hating twitter, while.. doing the exact same things on bluesky they did on twitter 🤷‍♂️ so I think Elon Musk aside it's basically the same thing with less users.

I used to be big on instagram but basically stopped using it when they introduced reels, now I just post and disappear. I hate that they couldn't just leave it simple and uncluttered and the fact that reels became so popular pissed me off lmao.

Tiktok is a tricky one for me because I go "viral" easily there and it's my biggest platform BUT it's very addicting and you sorta have to scroll through the main page to find content to make + a lot of the time you need to make content specifically for it. Which is a time sink for me in a lot of ways :') I tend to open it every other month to maybe post something then ghost again

Tumblr is... fine? Idk tumblr definitely feels like both the most useless and the easiest social media to use. Useless in the sense that I never expect anything that happens on tumblr to materialise into anything outside of it. Easiest in the sense that it's just chill for me to post and engage with what people send me without needing to think about it too hard. Trying to get original content to take off here was in vain but fanart does particularly well as expected.. which means it only started being fun for me when I got into BG3 as I'd never been in a fandom before lmao. I like that, just like twitter, it's not only for visual posts, but get overwhelmed at the idea of blogs and formatting and sorting posts, so I only use it barebones and tend to not engage with the main page/timeline either

Engagement-wise, I honestly couldn't tell ya. I think that comes down to you paying attention to each social media's trends and how people interact with it. Personally I'm (very luckily) at a stage where 99% of the time I don't care about whether a post makes numbers or flops, and my platforms are big enough that if I REALLY needed something to do well I could probably find a way to make it loud enough so yknow

Hope this answers your question :'D

#q&a

[worldsfromhoney]

Greetings, plebeians

This is your resident unknown and attention-depraved author/writer, BEE/bee/beE/🐝

Here’s some stuff about moi:

I like… tea. YES I LIKE TEA 🍵🍵🍵 it’s quite honestly the greatest invention of all time

I also like reading. That’s kinda like a hobby that all writers are mandated to say. Which is reasonable.

I’m a fan of miniatures and piano. Yeah, I did try them out. Yeah, I did fail spectacularly, thank you! ☺️

I also like painting but the therapy one and not just a blank canvas that sucks the soul out of artists lol

What do I write?

I write… stuff. BEAUTIFUL, HEARTBREAKING STUFF, mind you. But it’s still stuff, so lemme elaborate.

Speculative fiction - if you idk this, it’s really just a mix of fantasy and sci-fi; the ‘what if’ genre

Urban fantasy - don’t get me wrong, I love high fantasy, but urban is waaay easier to worldbuild

Steampunk & other punks - PUUUUNK 🤘🤘🤘

Horror and thriller - mostly psychological and body horror, don’t worry! I don’t do jump scares or anything ☺️

Slice of life - mwah my heart and soul mwah

Others - yes, I am capable of doing other genres 😤 I’m a multi-faceted bee, you know?

DISCLAIMER: what I write might only reflect upon my psyche and state of mind but that is not a guarantee

My WiPs

I am proud to say that… I DO NOT HAVE ANY!!

*gasp* what ever do you mean bee? Are you quitting writing? *sobs*

No, my darlings.

i just have no big projects to boast about right now. I feel like big projects aint my thing at the moment and pushing myself only led me to disappear from the internet for a month 😞

What i do have are short works i randomly choose to write and post here on tumblr !!

✨ FICLET MASTERLIST IS HERE ✨

🐝 POETRY MASTERLIST IS HERE TOO 🐝

If you’re interested, please comment on this post or reblog or DM me if you want to be put in the taglist!!

Does that mean you accept… requests?

…………yes. Yes i do. Go and flood my askbox you plebs !

Am I anywhere else?

Please. It’s 2023. Of course I’m… everywhere *cue evil laugh*

Bluesky - if you haven’t heard it yet, tis the new Twitter… cuz it’s literally made by the old creators of that glorious blue bird *cue a moment of silence*

Tiktok or Twitter - do not look for me here

Tumblr - EYYYYYYYYYYY i post ALL my stuff here !! They’re really just bait to hook some writer friends 🥹

Ko-Fi - ehem ehem i know first drafts are considered shite but BUT i have decided to make them available for perusal yes you can burn your eyes to anyone who buys me a cup of tea ~

Patreon - i finally have one!! I’m still setting it up tho and prepping all the content 💛💛💛

I’ll be doing a patreon soon enough actually so look out for that

How I organise myself

Well i wish this is applicable to actual life because i’d very much like to know how 🫡

Jk, here be the tags:

#bee writes some stuff - my micros, my flash fics, my text posts

#bee plays some games - tag games !! which i have never played before till now !!

#bee does some prompts - this will definitely see the light of day… someday

#bee stalking some writers - what it says on the tin

#bee answers some asks - omg i only added this because someone actually sent me one *faints*

#bee saves some stuff - there are way too many resource posts that i’ve scrolled past cuz idk how to tag

#writeblr #writeblr intro #writer introduction #hello world!

[fedoraspooky]

In light of tumblr shooting itself in the foot, I've been thinking about what I should do with my art from now on. Obviously, deleting my old posts off here isn't gonna do shit, it's essentially locking my door after my house got emptied out by burglars. Especially with my old rp account I no longer can log into, they're just gonna steal and sell my old art that I posted there and I can't even flip a questionably-affective toggle about it.

Thing is, I dunno how many people are gonna actually leave. I'm not even sure I will, since I have a lot of friends here... And after so many shitty updates a lot of people are just hanging on out of spite at this point.

That said, I'm considering that for art posts and stuff, maybe I'll post them elsewhere and just link to them here so they're not on tumblr's servers? Idk... Tumblr tends to kill the visibility of links but I'm not really sure what else I can do.

Also, there's the question of where to actually post new stuff. Bluesky seems the most active but I dont know if old posts cut off after a certain amount of posts like twitter does, in which case that would not be a good archive in the long run. xnx

Cohost is functionally pretty close to tumblr, but ngl it seems super isolated on there bc of its commitment to not showing any likes on your posts. I get that its to combat the social media numbers game, but the downside is that it looks like nobody's even seen your work. If people like something of yours there's no way outside of notifs to see it, so scrolling down on your page and seeing only zeros after zeros of comments on stuff (comments are the only visible number), it's easy to feel like you're just posting into a void.

Pillowfort is pretty good, and they just added tag blocking and the ability to queue/schedule posts. Still kinda quiet and invite only, but if you sign up for the invite queue you can get one pretty fast. Also i probaby have a ton of invites sitting around if anyone wants one. I wish it had an app, but mobile web version works well enough I guess, and I'm already used to doing that with sheezy and newgrounds, so I just have those open in mobile tabs together.

Speaking of, Newgrounds has been pretty good, but due to the nature of the portal system and stuff you're more encouraged to post only your better-looking stuff there. You CAN post doodles if you want, but only outside of the portal, which limits their visibility. Kinda like dA's scraps system I guess.

Sheezy looks super promising customization-wise so I'm thinking of posting there more when it opens up to more peeps.

Toyhouse also looks really good for OC and story things too, and also has a good degree of customization.

There's probs options I haven't even thought about, but its good to know there ARE options. I may post in several of those places for now and see how it goes. Test the waters a bit.

If you're thinking of moving your art elsewhere lemme know where, I'm curious to see where people are going :o

Especially you moots, i need to refind my pals in these other places!

#tumblr #tumblr alternatives #alright where we droppin boys?

[gatheredfates]

I vented about this on my bluesky but I also wanted to express it here a) because it's my blog and I can but b) just see if I'm literally not the only one experiencing this emotion. It's a rare negative post? idk. It's under the cut. I'll probably delete it later.

I'm basically just going to post what I wrote on bluesky first and then kind of try to elaborate here.

I don't tend to express it very often, but trying to 'be the change you want to see in the world' as far as breaking through insular roleplay communities is hard when that's just what they are. Insular. And that's not really the fault of the players as it is decentralisation away from main hubs (forums, tumblr, etc) to secular discords. It's the inherent distrust that other people don't have your best interests at heart, or that they're going to be abusive/predatory/etc, that keeps people from reaching out. It's something I try to unlearn but also find is triggers the moment someone crosses a light boundary, even if it's not an obvious one? Idk. I feel like I used to be able to reach out to people much easier than before. That I could log into a game, go to an RP hub or event, and feel like I can interact with people other than those staffing. I don't know quite how to describe it, other than I feel like I'm sometimes pushing against a wave of people who crave interaction but won't/can't give it back. It's strange in a hobby that's supposed to collaborative.

I've just been finding it so exhausting lately. It feel like so many roleplay communities are tucked away on discords that are not easy to advertise or locate. It feels like, if I go to an event, the only major interactions outside my circle of friends are from staff members at the event and not other players?

Let's not even talk about how much the userbase of tumblr has decreased, as well as this weird social stigma that's two parts 'reblogging this diminishes the aesthetic of my roleplay' or 'what if people think I'm weird if I constantly like/reblog their stuff'. It's not even me. I see things where I'm like 'oh that's so pretty i bet it has a lot of notes!' and it has like... twenty.

idk. I feel like i'm the old man yelling at the cloud. I feel like it was so much easier to find roleplay a few years ago whereas now it's clawing through communities and trying to be as unobtrusive as possible. It's weird as hell.

#｡･ﾟﾟ･ — sea speaks #coming into it more and more as i try to attend more events #like #i'd hate to be going to an event by yourself #as in like you're brand new to the community #it's so hard idk how people do it

[randomalistic]

Ok oh my god. OH MY GOD. I just saw treasure planet for the first time and It was fucking amazing. Like yeah Duh I KNOWWW i know it’s like. “underrated Disney movie bla bla it was a commercial failure” . You know the deal.

But if there is 1 thing I want to say:

I cannot emphasize enough how meaningful and touching it is to the audience when you allow your male main characters to cry, and hug, and be emotionally vulnerable without shame. That brought this film to a whole new level 🥺

its a beautiful movie that took so many creative risks and that’s so admirable. It’s so clear they had a vision and they crafted that vision with endless amounts of love :’] I DID CRY.

More rambling below

I was CONSISTENTLY delighted by how creative the characters were and incredibly entertained throughout. So fucking fun and engaging and it feels like a 2 hour movie so much happens. How is it only 1.5 hours.

I CRIED !!!!!!!!!! John Silver and Jim’s relationship was so COMPLEX like actually amazing. The father figure dynamic is so sweet and heartwarming and so heartbreaking simultaneously like I was not expecting that AMV montage in the middle like that shit cut me so deep it was outstanding. A montage about Jim’s troubled childhood with a neglectful absent father and then DIRECTLY PARALLELING THAT WITH HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH SILVER. LIKE HES FINALLY OVERCOMING THOSE FEELINGS AND LIVING HIS LIFE. GODDAMN!!! THATS SO POWERFUL!! THATS SO INCREDIBLE!!! THATS JUST IN THE MOVIE!!!!??!

Also the character/creature designs are RELENTLESS in how good they are. And they have so much fun with it. It’s so silly.

They had an old snapping turtle pirate???? hello?? He was introduced and then he died ❤️

The animation is also MIND BLOWINF like OH MY GOD!??? the seamless integration of 2D and 3D interacting is so impressive especially for 2001 like this was a technological feat for sure . Only rarely does the CG look dated (those whales at the start <\3 poor guys) BUT JOHN SILVER’S CYBORG ARM WAS FUCKING AMAZING LIKE I COUKD STARE AT THAT THING FOR HOURS .

Can’t find a gif of it but during his introduction there was a ROTATING SHOT of him cooking (❤️) while using his arm and his arm has so many tools inside it like a cyborg Swiss Army knife it’s the coolest fucking thing ever. Just Amazing

Also the fact they introduced an entirely new character 53 minutes in when the main cast has already been established was such a risk, but it so paid off. I love B.E.N. The fact he’s fully 3D animated and he’s THAT expressive. WHILE BEING A ROBOT? adorable. He’s Adorable. He’s so mentally ill and strange.

What is wrong with him. He is. dare I say. spamtonlike. pathetic and unhinged. Houses forbidden knowledge. What a Pitiful creature 🧡his glowing CRT eyes are really cute. There was a moment when the lights went out it was only his eyes and I Liked That

I love weird little robot guys in early-late 2000s movies. I need to watch Bluesky robots. I need my fix.

Morph could’ve been a really obnoxious comedic relief animal sidekick but they somehow managed to make him really cute and likable. (Also They only used him for plot points A LITTLE. Turning into anything couldve been overpowered as fuck. But alas… he is a mindless animal...) We love Morph. His relationship with silver is so fucking cute.

Kind of a Delbert centrist honestly. I liked him but also kinda dislike him. Bro kinda gives self centered misogynist scientist vibes. But he’s also silly and self conscious though guyssss.!! I thought I would like him more than I did. BUT He’s animated SO wonderfully though I love the shape of his hands and his weird goat face. Solid 7/10 weird guy. Idk why he came with Jim on the ship though❤️

Captain Amelia was fucking awesome for the first half of the movie. One of the best characters. Yeah. ……………. They fumbled her so hard. MAYBE ITS JUST ME BUT ME AND MY FRIEND WERE NOT A FAN OF HER AND DELBERT AT ALL. Disney was like. We have a competent woman character ! Competent woman has to get injured and then the incompetent man has to take care of her and then they HAVE to fall in love. It’s actually so tragic like they did NOT deserve her.

IN FACT HERE’S MY SCORCHING HOT TAKE: Delbert should’ve been the one to get injured and Amelia nurses him back to health. Delbert might apologize profusely because of his self confidence issues and cuz he internalizes things that go wrong as his fault. Amelia reassures him, realizing that she was too harsh on him earlier. Delbert becomes less intimidated by her because she opens up to him and they grow to trust one another. Amelia stays with him while Jim goes to hide. And whapow !!!! Same relationship is built up without disempowering a female character. It doesn’t even have to be romantic they can just be friends……. 🫶 cuz it comes off as weird because since the start Delbert was like “wtf the captain is a GIRL?? Wait ooh la laaa she’s pretty” and she had 0 interest in him. so like the ONLY way they could pair them together was to get her injured and have him care for her . And she falls in love with him out of nowhere. No. Being cared for does not mean you’ll fall in love with your caretaker. She’s so ace coded to me and my friend. Until SUDDENLY. Am I crazy

Ok so like yeah the forced heterosexual love interest moment. I did not want to see their FOUR (4) hybrid babies at the end. I’m losing my mind. also did Jim become a cop? I swear to fucking god LOL

The movie was SO good that disney didn’t know how to wrap it up without ruining it ❤️ WHICH IS VERY INTERESTING I think they had to compensate for all the risks they took with a safe and weird ending where the police like him now and the police are ok guys. Disney approved

Anyways watch/rewatch the movie right now. Skip the final minute <3

One of my new favorite movies goddamn!

Edit: I would’ve forgiven them if Delbert got pregnant instead

#must watch #treasure planet #txt #movie #film #long post #gif

[canmom]

looking again at bluesky - kind of weirdly slow load times, idk what's up with that? and the vibe feels way too much like twitter (inevitably). deeply normiecoded. i might post my stuff on there but i don't think I'll be comfy treating it as 'home'.

cohost might be worth a shot but it feels like a drama bomb waiting to explode. on some level i feel like you actually want the admins of a social media site to be distant and have minimal interference in the day to day affairs. cohost frontloads a lot of rhetoric about being a better leftist way of doing software, and that ironically makes me worry about its stability. at best they may soon exercise their own divine right to capriciously ban people based on the rumour mill. at worst i anticipate some falling out within the dev team that brings the whole thing down. also not sure how it handles spam, moderation at scale etc. fundamentally i don't see much reason to think it will be better than tumblr.

tbh i probably need to just stop using social media as much. it eats up a lot of time and to what end? hopefully i will be able to rebuild some kind of irl friend group once I'm set up in Glasgow. if not...

idk it would be a shame to sacrifice all my connections on here. I'm grateful to everyone who reads my stuff, i won't be deleting the archive. but it feels like a sinking ship. i just don't know an obvious better place to go.

#i met most of my current close friends on here but now most of them have left

[implausiblyjosh]

Cohost Criticism

The thing about cohost is that you have to walk on eggshells if you wanna talk about cohost, let alone criticize cohost. Here are two bits of criticism about cohost from me, one posted on cohost another posted on Twitter.

Criticism of cohost, on cohost

Transparency is not bad, I don’t think. But it’s incredibly clear that it’s been used to frame ASSC and cohost as some plucky little co-op that could, so that when criticism of cohost happens it’s immediately framed as a personal attack on Staff. Almost every single time criticism of cohost has happened on here, big posts go around talking about how they’re just 4 people and how could you ever suggest improvements, don’t you know you’ll KILL the site, criticizing the site is like yelling at the McDonald’s cashier, etc etc etc. I’ve said this all before, and like… idk, sucks that it took two different incredibly vitriolic discourses around accessibility to finally get people on staff to be like “please don’t fight on our behalf.” It’s also pick and choose, right? When criticism comes up, it’s the realities and transparency of financials and how it’s just 4 people and on and on, but like… hey, do we know how they got the money? What’s the relationship there? How were they able to just have what seems to be a friend loan for a few years with no delivered product/service? What happened to all the site ideas before cohost? It feels incredibly selective, and the selection is geared towards a parasocial relationship. I mean… people on bluesky are opening up about fallout from they criticizing cohost in private, so it’s not like this culture comes from nowhere.

I’ll quote something I read earlier that I agree with. No links, don’t wanna blow up the spot.

I think they were being deliberately dishonest about being a for profit LLC. I think they know that makes them sound corporate and that's why they call themselves a co-op and a non-profit/not-for-profit (both legal designations they do not meet). I think this is fully an image thing, they want to be the cool leftist co-op and not the company run by former Big Tech employees.

I think they have cultivated a parasocial relationship with their members. I am undecided on whether this was deliberate or if they just don't see the problem with it. They are far too personal about what they post and they explicitly want people to see them as friends, going so far as to saying you need to trust that they're doing things in good faith because they're your friends. Your users don't need to hear about which members of staff are in a polycule together. Your users don't need to hear that bug reports make you feel like a failure. When you make policy choices that cause the site to get into massive fights over them, you shouldn't be posting little jokes about the discourse. Trying to shame users for criticizing a moderation decision you made for not trusting you is absurd, they AREN'T your friends and can only trust you based on the actions they see from you, and if they don't trust you based on that you don't get to chastise them for it. Your hundreds of thousands of users are not your friends. But it was effective, because anyone with any criticism is shouted down by people who seriously think the staff are their friends.

Also, this bit:

To come in and say "we have no idea what we're doing but WE'LL always support you", while sites like Switter had to close down due to various government and corporate pressures, is just...fuck you honestly. If you want the techbro mindset here it is. "Nobody else is doing this because their Morals are bad and our Morals are good!" People who actually have done the hard work of trying to make safe spaces for sex workers failed, but no, I'm sure you all will do great. If they ever ship tipping (at this point I can't see it happening before they fold but let's pretend) they're going to eventually get cut off from their payment processors when it's being used for mostly porn and they're going to learn why everyone else had to quit and then they'll have to pull an excuse out of their ass for why all their grandstanding in the past just fell apart. It disgusts me to pretend like some big ally to sex workers then do this little research into what it actually takes to support them.

This bit gets me the most because, like… they’re remaking Project Wonderful and people are calling it revolutionary. We had creative/user-supported ads for years on sites like Questionable Content. This isn’t new! We’re getting the thing that the old internet had! It’s like calling neocities or SpaceHey or wikidot revolutionary.

Idk how to end this. I’ve been yelling about the culture here for what feels like ages now. It feels like I’m yelling into a void.

---

Criticism of cohost, on Twitter

Cohost post about cohost that’s too spicy for cohost: I don’t know that I’d call the LLC that is marketing itself as a non-profit that only keeps up with its promised monthly financial updates when they want more cash from users “transparent”, but that’s just me.

When the whole of the financial history is laid out and there are some big, glaring questions (who did you get this money from? Why can you not reach them? What happened to the promised features? why are user ads now, suddenly, a good thing?) it doesn’t feel transparent.

If yall haven’t been delivering features, or hitting targets, and acting like making a usable dark mode for your site was some impossible task, why did you give yourselves raises?

It feels like the “transparency” only exists to further a parasocial relationships in your favor. The important questions are left alone, but just enough is given to cultivate an active userbase that wants to fight any and all criticism on your behalf.

It happens in the comments of their posts. I saw someone ask completely sensible questions about the finances, on the finances post, and were immediately called a middle manager.

It happens on the site. People got real mad that someone would dare give links and document discourse on cohost. It wasn’t about the rancid vibes of the post*, it was about the act of linking to cohost from off-site period.

It happens off-site. People made pillowfort accounts to attack the person mentioned before. On bluesky someone is getting attacked for explaining their horrible experience with the founders.

This doesn’t feel like transparency, because the end goal here isn’t a “not-for-profit” that finally made a good site and made it last. It’s about a LLC asking you for your money when times are tough and discouraging criticism anywhere.

Another post about cohost that’s too spicy for cohost: Just because your friends run an LLC doesn’t mean your friend’s LLC shouldn’t be criticized as a business. Actively discouraging criticism cause your friends run the LLC has actively made cohost’s vibes rancid.

#cohost #social media

[captainmera]

ello mera,

I wanted to ask how you post your comics online because i was thinking about making my own web comic series but i dont know where to start hehe

I think the website you used for IBWR was called Hiveworks but im not to sure how it works...

Also if you have any other tips when it comes to making comics like time management, planning, or even how draw those gorgeous backgrounds, it would be much appreciated :D

Thank you for your time ヾ(•ω•`)o ✧.*

Sure thing buckaroo, get in the backseat and let's hit the comic road!

ヾ(•`ω´•)o ✧.*

this is all from my perspective though, some stuff may not work for you, but hey - no knowledge is bad knowledge.

Hiveworks is a... Publisher! of sorts! Kind of. They're not like webtoons or Tapas when it comes to comic hosting, you have to be invited to Hiveworks (like me!) or apply to join them! :) They also have Hivemill which is a place where they sell merch for the comics. Either Hiveworks helped making the merch, or the artists themselves made the stuff and Hiveworks helps distribute it (I THINK, don't quote me on that. I haven't made or sold merch with them before. But it's what I understand. They have explained it to me, I'm just kinda dumb).

However! Comic control, of which Hiveworks uses to make the websites are free for anyone to use! :) So if you want your own website, go ahead and make one!

I'd still recommend you buy the URL you'll use in that case though. I pay a yearly fee on GoDaddy.com for mine. It's affordable and honestly worth it as a precaution, lest a dirtbag buy it just to ruin my day and give me distress for a year(s).

But my recommendation is that you mirror your comic in as many places as possible.

Now, my website has ads on it, so if you switch off ad-block when visiting IBWR, I can get ad rev from it! :D (thanks to Hiveworks, that is, they added the ad stuff on there. Idk how it works but it's nice passive income that I really need. It pays for my food).

That means I will prioritize the website over the secondary mirrored places. So that's the place I always link to first. So if people REALLY want to get the next page sooner, they can always check there first.

However, mirroring is great because it is very difficult to get people to read the story you've put so much love into. I want people to enjoy my story as much as I do. The more places you update it to, the more people will discover you.

I've noticed that people like to follow the artist/author on social media for update announcements and general news of what's going on for the comic - so know where your presence on socmed is at! If it's instagram, well, then prioritize instagram but don't forget bluesky or tumblr too! Just know where you're at.

BUT!! And I cannot stress (lol) this enough - but don't stress (lol) about it. which is easier said than done.

It can feel super overwhelming to constantly make each update of a page feel like a check list of "okay, posted announcement to insta, tumblr, twitter, I have scheduled a mirrored post to comicfury and tumblr, I have added all the links in the author section, uuuh, I gotta add a cropped panel sneak-peak in each and I gotta--" that shit gets tiring quick. Work smart not hard. I copy paste from a document and I print-screen crop a panel from my comic on my phone kind of flimsily and that works. Nobody cares if it's fancy. It's just extra energy on my part that I can't be arsed to worry about.

Like Webtoons require that you to always have a preview icon for each update. That's as complicated as I'm willing to get tbh. If it requires more than that from me I'm gonna hate it. But that's just me.

you want to be able to do something consistently.

Which brings me to..

MANAGEMENT

bro, it's a job. It takes work. Work is not always fun, but you gotta show up for it. you're the only worker here. If you don't show up, it doesn't get done.

And people are not going to read it until there's at least pages enough for them to catch on to a story. If you're here for recognition right away, stop. You'll hurt yourself. I know we live in a time of quick-positive feedback through likes and shares, etc. But that's just not reality most of the time when starting up.

So, you got to want to tell the story more than whatever you are expecting to get out of this.

Which will also help you with managing your feelings if your reader count grows or declines. Just remind yourself of why you even want to tell your stories. It's easier said than done, but I found it to be a helpful philosophy to try stick by.

Everything I gain from sharing my story is just a plus. Not the reason.

What I did, also, was to just post whenever I finished a page. I had no readers, only commitment to myself and the comic. That's it. You'll find it easier if you don't force yourself at first, at least I did. And then as you gain your own momentum and work-pace, you'll be able to be like "Oh yeah, sunday works for me. I'll aim for that." Aim for it, don't promise. But show up. You're not a machine, shit happens, life comes in. If you have a deadline that makes you feel guilty, you might start avoiding it etc. So maybe just cut yourself some slack and go "whenever I'm done with a page is a good day."

You are your own boss. You make your own rules.

Yes, there is an algorithm to it all - when's the best time to post, getting new readers through memes or what have you. You might discover that the best way for you to get readers is to make funny videoclips on instagram or tiktok - there is no wrong way.

However, it shouldn't feel like too much of a chore. You should enjoy it at least a little bit. Like, maybe you kinda like making goofy vids of your comic, or draw memes, whatever, right? But you should enjoy some of it. If you hate making vids, but you know it is a good pond to fish in.. well, like... I'm sorry but you're gonna get frustrated with it.

I like posting THANK YOU FOR READING doodles of my characters on instagram stories! :D <3 I like that! That's not too much trouble for me.

BE CRINGE, BE FREE.

who gives a shit.

enjoy yourself you goofy ass little comic artist. Blast your story everywhere, be proud, have fun. People enjoy having fun, they usually want to join in with the fun.

If you have fun, others have fun being with you.

DRAWING COMICS

dawg I wish I had any better tips than... Fuck it, poke at it however you want.

I usually have ten pages flimsily sketched out with speech-dialogues so I know what's gonna happen in the next pages, so I can pace the scene somewhat.

I say that, like I'm some kinda professional, but I jump between pages. Whichever page seems a little more fun. Sometimes I stare myself blind on a page and gotta draw on something else.

Some pages are super well sketched, others are just bald stickfigures making faces at other bald stickfigures.

BACKGROUNDS

Get references. Either look at photographs or take the yourself. Start getting into looking at buildings in real life. I, myself, spend quite a lot of time looking at different windows and brick buildings going "Dang, so that's a widow huh? Architects sure just make windows like BAM ENJOY THIS ONE huh?"

Basically, start appreciating the world around you. There's art everywhere. Someone has put thought - however big or small - into that sidewalk.

Is it a shitty sidewalk? Well, that's really grounding isn't it? Someone, at some point, looked at this space, sighed and thought "fuck man I just wanna go home. That's good enough." and that really grounds you visually into that this world is a place where people have been before you.

Sometimes I get lazy and at the same time in a mood to challenge my memory, and I'll start inventing what the heck a building or street looks like. And you can probably easily tell in a page when I, too, am going "fuck man I just wanna get this page done with, that's good enough."

AND THAT'S FINE!!!

Not everything have to be an awestriking master page! Damn, the pressure I'd be under if that's the only thing I had to produce asdfghj! if anything, great pages look better because some pages are shite.

It's okay.

It doesn't have to be perfect every time. Learn what didn't work, what worked. Post it. Move on. You can't sit on this forever or the story will never be told. Just post it, it's fine.

THERE IS NO PERFECT TIME TO POST YOUR STORY.

Post it in chunks or page by page. It doesn't really matter - new readers are going to read it all in one sitting anyway.

-------

I think that's all I can think of for now??

Hope that helped!

Oh also I have this side blog I've been neglecting a bit, but feel free to check that out: @comicartistcentral

#comics #comic #webcomic #comic tips #comic creating

[cielsosinfel]

i want to eventually move over all my blusky rambling to here, because reading through even your own older posts on bluesky is still DOGSHIT. But I'm very very tired from health issues so I'll figure that out later. but I do wanna post this. I was scouring through the devnotes for Raphael, Hope and Korrilla (still haven't gotten to the end of HoH so also desperately avoiding cutscenes I have yet to reach lmao playing with fire, oh well)

AND THIS ONE! THIS ONE STOOD OUT TO ME!

Korrilla: Poor, deluded Hope. She's stubborn. Raphael loves stubborn. If she'd just agree to serve him, he'd probably have released her a long time ago. Korrilla: As things stand, she's his favourite toy. We're all mad here, but Hope in hell? Why that's the definition of insanity. Devnote: NodeContext: Complicated feelings. Both jealous of Raphael's attention and sad because she knows her sister doesn't want it.

I don't think the emotions expressed in the devnote come across in the line as voice-acted in the game, but the fact it was the writer's intention is so startling, and really explains a lot of the dynamic between these two... Hope absolutely loathes Raphael. She has resisted giving into him for an untold number of years, refused him at every juncture despite the tortures it earns her. he's obsessed with her because she's something he can't claim ownership of, no matter what he does, and it infuriates him. And then there's Korrilla. Her own sister has basically abandoned her, sided with her abuser, become deathly loyal to him, JOINED in torturing her ("Sister, my sister, oh what have you done? Sold me for soul scraps, torment me for fun!" as Hope says.) Basically wholly given herself over to Raphael as an extension of his will, as a tool and a weapon for him to make use of. Even seems to have moments of casual camaraderie with him (the silly betting over what their clients will manage do...) The depths of abandonment and resentment Hope must feel!

And yet apparently Korrilla's jealous that Raphael is still so fixated on the sister of hers who refuses him at every turn, when she's practically his star employee, the person he relies on most. Everything she does for him and he still wants a woman he cannot break down into wanting him. Jealous yet still sad about what her sister is going through, still having this shred of empathy, even while thinking Hope is bringing it on herself, because wouldn't it be so easy to say "yes"? Wouldn't it be so easy to give in?

idk these three drive me crazier the more I think about them

And it's not like Korrilla wasn't subject to Raphael's violence, if we go off this note, but apparently she took to the Hells and the expectations of its hierarchies and means of survival very quickly and very well. But that still means violence, fear and intimidation were used to secure her cooperation and loyalty in the beginning, right? Did she watch what was happening to her sister, so much firmer in her morals, and decide "I will avoid this by any means necessary"? "If I just show Hope how good she can have it by agreeing to Raphael's authority, she'll come to her senses"? Me spinning headcanons in my mind lmao

Also personally I don't interpret this jealousy as a romantic thing on Korrilla's part, but who knows what the writer's intention was. Literally the only mention of these feelings of Korrilla's, as far as I know, is this devnote. I will keep an eye out as I continue to play and adjust my interpretations accordingly lmao

#rue in baldy gate #korrilla #raphael #hope hearthflame #mine poste #raphhope

[paper-starz]

Soooooo guess who has instagram and Bluesky??????

MEEEEEEE

Instagram

Bluesky

Tbh, I’m kinda scared. Idk how to feel about Bluesky, it’s unorganized and there’s no proper tagging system. I’m sure it’ll get better, but I hope it won’t turn into Twitter2.0

And as for instagram, the cropping is weird and it’s only shows you the most recent TOP posts, not the most recent recent posts, which sucks :/

#instagram #Bluesky #social media

[oozeandgoo-art]

Well, it looks like Tumblr is officially going down the drain. Not today, but someday relatively soon.

This is one part me reminding myself to tell you that I'm on a bunch of other sites under the same name - twitter i'm oozeandgoo_art, not that anyone wants to use twitter, but on bluesky i'm also oozeandgoo-art. we'll see how much uploading i get done over there, i'm working on posting everything i got but i'm not being super professional about it yet because i didn't feel like it. I also have a telegram channel that posts updates at https://t.me/oozeandgooart . i can't remember what other sites i'm on right this second.

that being said, I don't like to be beholden to social medias and platforms! I've mentioned thinking about it before, but I think I'm going to get more serious about it - if I were to start up an email chain where I basically just send the art I've finished to everyone in the chain, would anyone find that more amenable than going hunting across platforms?

I know I greatly enjoy getting weird robot stuff in my emails, but I'm not sure that holds true for everyone. Hating emails is like a whole meme on here; my irl friends make fun of me (lovingly) for how often i delightedly check my email to see if there's anything new in it. So I am given to understand that the concept of an email every time I draw something may come over very differently for those of you who don't share my rosy outlook on things.

(If you're worried about, like, getting porn in your email when you don't want it, or gore, or etc, I'm going to try and set up multiple "levels" of email list and take people out for certain kinds of content. Or something like that idk. I love filtering things and I love not looking at certain characters and I want to give you all as much freedom as possible, that's just a later step)

Naturally Tumblr isn't going down the drain today, so there's time, but I want to be able to get you all before anything else changes.

#update