Thoughts On: ArtFight

June 21, 2026 .. John the Revelator - Depeche Mode

Oh boy, he has thoughts on Artfight.

Three teams huh? Pretty cool. I don't really get why some people seem really bent out of shape about it. It's fine to be disappointed in the theming choices, but every year I'm surprised by how much people care about this sort of thing. Or seemingly care. In truth, I don't think they care that much, but want to feel righteous in their feelings, and just saying "aw :(" doesn't quite cut it these days. I don't want this to turn into me belaboring upon how detrimental social media is when it comes to expression of opinions, or how we interact with our feelings, internally and externally, though.

Well, first off, I'm Team Mystery, haha. Second, when I'd heard someone else mention the idea of more than two themes, I scoffed at thought. Not because I thought it was stupid or pointless or nonsensical, but because the first thing that I thought of was: "That would be a nightmare for the ArtFight staff to manage." I still stand by this thought, btw, but also the longer I thought on this, the longer I realized: oh god that's exactly what they're going to do. It made sense, I'd heard other people saying part of why they weren't doing voting this year was because it would "spoil the surprise they have in mind for the 10 year anniversary." Which made no sense until the idea of three (or more) teams was introduced to me. I remember Kells, Seth, and I spending a good chunk of that afternoon, roughly a week before the official reveal, bouncing theoretical team ideas off each other. Some serious, some less so. None of them were even close to "Comedy", "Tragedy", and "Mystery", btw.

Speaking of the Artfight Staff, I'm not one to pass judgement on others whose shoes I'm not in, but even I have to admit that the whole thing with the rules was a huge mess. When it comes to "DNIs", well, there's a reason why I don't personally use one. I'm honestly quite neutral on them, though, so I didn't really care when they allowed them temporarily lol. What I do wish is that they would have just picked one and stuck with it. They were never going to please everyone or quell the arguing once that box was open. As for the other rules, for the most part, I feel as if they were just poorly worded and thus misunderstood. The subsequent rewordings were marginally better, but I truly feel like the staff could benefit from doing a few extra passes over their community posts and how they sound before sending them out into the world lol.

While it doesn't apply to me, when it comes to things that are disallowed to be depicted on-site, I find the line being drawn at "school shooters fictional or otherwise" extremely funny. Not in a "haha" way, but a "wait really?" way. It's their site, they can draw that line wherever they'd like, but I feel like there are other dark-OC-archetypes that I would have thought they should ban before getting there. I mean, I guess I do have an OC that borders on that topic, seeing as he brought a gun to school and that's why he was expelled in his backstory, but let's be real, I don't think he was gonna go through with anything. lol. Maybe I'll delete that part. Editors? Wait, I don't have editors. Oh well. Just you wait, one of these entries is going to be me going on my soapbox about how there's nothing theoretically wrong with making edgy, dark OCs, but how so few people know how to write them.

Anyway, ArtFight is coming up so so soon oh my god, I'm starting to get the pre-ArtFight anxiety. I'm so nervous bro! I also have several refs started and none of them finished, so! It's fine, I'm sure I won't procrastinate on them until its nearly July -- Oh my god is it really less than 10 days away??

Thoughts On?

June 20, 2026 .. All Apologies - Nirvana

My first blog post! yay!

Anyone who knows me personally knows I love to yap. If you only know me from social media, though, this may come as a surprise, as, on there, I pretty much post art quietly and make myself scarce. I can ostensibly go long spans without saying anything much at all outside of art posts. I'll be honest: Social Media scares me. It has for a long time. There's very little about it that doesn't scare me, the thousands of eyes on you at any given time, the scrutiny of bigoted strangers who will say or do something damaging and then never show up again, consequence free for those who know how to skirt just under the myopic eyes of the Panopticon. People who hold grudges against me scouring over every post I make with malintent, hoping for something to mock to their friends, or looking for anything that will bolster any conspiracy theories they may have about me. All the while feeling ironically invisible, desperate for validation that what I create is good enough to stand beside that of my peers. Eugh. What a downer way to start this. The thing is, I know I'm not alone in feeling this way.

Anyway, I'm using this more personal space as a way to just. Talk. I can't say I'll be wholly open the way I am in person, but, I'm already feeling more comfortable with speaking my thoughts here. I consider myself an extrovert, and honestly, what I did like about Social Media was how easy it was to make friends and speak to people. Form communities and join in on conversations without feeling like an intruder. Well, that's how it used to feel. Regardless, I like to yap. And that's what I plan on doing here.

Consider this an introduction to the blog! Things could change format-wise, I could get skittish and delete some entries, or edit them ("George Lucas" them, if you will). Anything could happen. This is where I'll put my thoughts on anything.