Retrospective

Hello Brother, said Wolf.

Hello Sister, said Dog.

How much you have changed after you went to sit by the fire with the Others, said Wolf.

How little you have changed after I left the Old Pack, said Dog.

You have baubles jingling from your harness, and your coat has grown soft to invite stroking hands, said Wolf.

I have an iron collar of deadly spikes, said Dog, and my teeth have not grown dull.

You are sleek and well fed, said Wolf, and then she asked, won't you share a lamb from your flock, so that I may prosper this bleak winter, as your sister?

I will not, said Dog, for the Others have given me the sacred duty to guard them. The Flock gives its body so the New Pack may keep its strength and use it to nurture the next generation. I have made my pact to uphold this cycle. You have made no vow, and run from your mother's flank to scavenge the middens of my New Pack.

I will give you not one lamb, Sister Wolf, and if you wish to take one, we must fight, pronounced Dog.

Aye Brother, so we must fight then, said Wolf.

I always think of this Undertale quote on New Year's day. 🌟

So a free tool called GLAZE has been developed that allows artists to cloak their artwork so it can't be mimicked by AI art tools.

AI art bros are big mad about it.

as ao3 approaches almost 6x what they asked for, here are some other places to give your money to

Iranian American Woman Fund

Women’s Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran

Taller Salud (which is non-profit in Puerto Rico currently collecting donations for support after Hurricane Fiona)

Out & Equal (which supports LGBTQ+ during the hiring process + helps defend against workplace discrimination)

The Foundation for AIDS Research

Center for Black Equity (supports the black queer community)

Funds for Writers (which offers grants to aspiring writers so they can afford publication, time off from work, etc.)

The Audre Lorde Project (which directly supports queer POC in New York City)

PEN America (which helps writers in financial need across the United States)

This is an entire list of organizations supporting queer and BIPOC STEM students you can donate to

The BGD Press (which specifically publishes queer POC)

****but if you want to directly support the people who make you free content, the next time your favorite fic writer or artists makes a crowd funding post, opens commissions, talks about their patreon/ko-fi, donate your money there!!****

literally Wikipedia would be better at this point

AO3 is asking for donations again, so when they inevitably far surpass what they ask for, please consider this! Also, with the recent legislative attacks on trans people and reproductive rights, consider donating to Planned Parenthood, the National Center for Transgender Equality, or the Transgender Law Center.

booktok has done immeasurable damage to society. these awful plots existed before but they were *mostly* contained in ao3 and wattpad and now you can go to a bookstore and find them in their own special section

My friends and I found these in a big name bookstore.

You can only reblog this on the 3st of January

the 3st huh?

Formorphus, the Shape Pokémon

Twisted refuse leftover from the creation of the world. It struggles to maintain a physical form.

Signature Ability: Fluctuate Upon taking heavy damage, it may change into a different type. Signature Move: Observe Takes a close look at the opponent and attempts to change into its type.

Formorphus (ORG Forme), the Origin Pokémon

Rarely, when particular circumstances align, it is able to remember the form of its creator.

concept inspired by the pokedex body shape categories and that spooky beta arceus sprite :> it's a bit long but there's more info/comments under the cut if you'd like to read them!!

Art by Jeremy chong

just some pointers for returning artists/blogs!

Hello. My name is Ceru, I'm a friend of Kat's. I'm here with the permission of her husband to make a terrible announcement.

Kat, aka Doppelgaangster, passed away on Monday morning. Her memorial will be held close to her home this Sunday.

It was very sudden and very unexpected. All of us are in absolute shock.

While we don't know what caused it yet for sure, it's safe to say it was a tragic fluke.

Kat was one of the best people we knew. She was kind, funny, talented, and extremely smart. Her art was one of a kind, always expressive, sometimes dark sometimes hilarious, always beautiful.

There is an endless list of the wonderful traits that made her who she was.

She was shy and quiet at first meeting people, but the closer you got to her the more vivacious and fun she became.

Our hearts are heavy, and our lives will never be the same without her beaming personality alongside us.

The only solace we have is that she is resting peacefully now, and that one day on the other side we may meet again.

Kat is survived by her husband, three cats, two dogs, all of her friends whether online or in her presence, and you - her followers.

This will be the final post on this blog. Nothing will be deleted, her art will remain as it is in her memory.

It may be small, but here is a link to her RedBubble if anyone would like to help her family with funeral costs.

If you would like to send her family and friends a message, or condolences, you can message me @cerussitel or Cora @cora-ora-ora-zone - we will pass it along.

Love you, Kat. Rest easy.

Rest easy or raise hell, not necessarily in that order.

I miss you so fucking much.

important

Ummm byee

So I kind of hate that Putin is trying to restrict the flow of information into Russia so that he can control the narrative, so for my Russian friends, here is my guide on

How to get around internet censorship and maintain internet privacy

This will be an extremely long post 😅

Priorities

Alternative Front-Ends A frontend is the the part of a website which the user interacts with directly. To browse the contents of websites, you usually have to visit them. However, many people have made alternative privacy-respecting frontends to popular websites that allow you to see the site’s content without actually visiting the website. This helps avoid tracking, data-collection, and even countries’ attempts to ban websites. Twitter is banned in Russia right now, but using all an alternative frontend to Twitter works (according to my Russian friend).

Google Translate

Imgur

Instagram

Medium

Reddit

TikTok

Twitter

Wikipedia

YouTube

YouTube Music

If anyone knows of one of these for Tumblr please let me know. I found this site called Tumgir but it looks sketchy and unlike the rest of the ones I listed, it’s not open-source. So visit with caution, but I’m mentioning it because it might be better than nothing.

There are also these browser extensions that automatically redirect site links to the available alternatives:

Mozilla Firefox

Google Chrome

iPhone (iOS 15+) Safari

Android

Messaging / Communication

Matrix is a federated and decentralized End-to-End Encrypted (E2EE) messaging with many platforms, the most popular of which is Element. It’s like Discord, but worse. It’s getting better over time though! You can even use a a throwaway email to sign-up.

If you’re Russian you likely already know about Telegram, but MAKE SURE you’re aware that only Secret Chats are End-to-End Encrypted. So don’t say anything that would get you in trouble outside of a Secret Chat.

End Notes

China is way better at internet censorship. They’ve had years to build the infrastructure to control the flow of information online. And yet, the Chinese people still manage to “climb the wall” and find ways around this. Russia is new to this game and doesn’t have the resources China does. So I really doubt it’ll be that hard to get around their attempts to block websites. Have faith! And feel free to DM me for more info cause this post just scratches the surface for things you can do tbh.

Release Date Announcement

We are happy to announce that the Garden of Secrets Zine campaign will launch March 22nd!

Garden of Secrets is a Steven Universe fan zine dedicated to Rose Quartz, the previous leader of the Crystal Gems. Consisting of 34 artists and 9 writers, this zine is going to be 132 pages full of beautifully intricate art and immersive stories, along with 5 pieces of carefully designed merch.

The campaign will be happening on Indiegogo!

Hello everyone! Here are all our contributors who will be contributing to our zine! We made a post in the past, but here’s a refresher in case you missed/forgot it. This wonderful graphic was made by @shisei11 a mod on the zine!

On top of that, we will be announcing the campaign launch date tomorrow at around 9am CST on both our tumblr and our twitter. Make sure to check it out!