Welcome to my Yap Corner. We've all got things to say, thoughts floating around in our brains.
Many people run to social media to let them out, however, I find posting on massive social sites too intimidating.
The solution? Yap Corner.
I've been so busy lately. Since the last post, I launched a few new stickers on my Etsy shop and they've been doing so great! I've been so focused on fulfilling orders and designing new products that I haven't sat down and worked on my site in a few weeks. I also recently created a new Discord server ¹ and setting that up took a lot of my attention for a while. But for now, I'm here and i'm writing again.
In creative news, I've started decorating toploaders! It's something i've wanted to do for such a long time and finally I have all of the materials needed and I've been able to jump into the hobby. As a sticker hoarder it's been very therapeutic, buying stickers with a purpose in mind for them and then using them for that purpose is so satisfying. I plan to decorate toploaders for this year's Art Fight as well.
I've also started coding yet another website: "Brainwurms." I'm moving all of my character pages to this site slowly; I think it will be better to have a main directory since there are so many characters I want to make pages for. I've had so much fun building it, I've learned a lot from working on this personal site, and I'm impressed with how much I've improved.
¹ The Server is called "Keanu Movie Club". We gather together once a week to watch a movie starring Keanu Reeves. As well as discussing our favorite Keanu characters and movies! If you're interested in joining you can reach out to me on Tumblr (@lissneon) or Twitter (@neon_and_chrome) for an invite.
But now to get to what made me want to write in the first place; I fucking hate AI!!
It has been on my mind constantly as of late. I've been a bit more active in fan communities online in the past few months; and in that time, I've noticed a trend of other creatives willingly feeding their ideas into AI. This is so disturbing to me. What is it that possesses someone to give over their creative efforts to a soulless machine? Is it the instant gratification? Feeding a prompt into an AI that will spit out an entire fanfiction just because they want to consume it, not ever wanting to create anything. It's sad.
I believe there's a disconnect in this current era of fandom between being a fan of something casually and actually wanting to participate in fandom. It's okay to just like something! I think with the normality of binge watching and the push to move community online during the pandemic lockdown a few years back, people decided that 'fandom' meant anyone who enjoys a specific media.
Before this current era of the internet, a 'fandom' was the dedicated few who took a piece of media to heart. The freaks who had posters lining wall to wall of their bedroom, collectors with dedicated spaces in their homes for their most beloved pieces, cosplayers who spent months handcrafting their favorite character's costume just because it made them happy. Fandom has always been a place for those who care about something a bit 'too' much to have someone to share their excitement with. It was something associated with nerds and geeks and weirdos, not every single person who happened to watch a Netflix miniseries and now wants to post about their latest white boy of the month.
In the past, you could say you liked watching a show and that would be the end of the conversation. You could discuss an episode of cable TV with nearly anyone because there was never this much media available to the average person. Now with as many streaming services as their are stars in the night sky, it is nearly impossible to find someone in real life that knows whatever show or movie you're talking about if it isn't trending. So where would one turn to find connection? The internet.
Those breakroom discussions between casual fans became tweets and Tumblr posts, Pinterest boards and Tiktok videos. These spaces were flooded by average people discovering that there were freaks on the internet who created more of their favorite medias. Fanfic writers, fan artists, bloggers; all dedicated to their favorite TV show. It was like discovering a whole secret society hidden from those who never thought to look. And with that, there became this demand for more. Capitalistic consumers looking to burn through every fanwork in sight, forgetting there were real people on the other end who were only creating something because they loved doing so.
That's the real root of fandom i think. Love. Passion. Caring about something so much it drives you to create something. If you are only involved in fandom to consume, you do not belong in fandom. Now, I don't mean those who don't post their own fanworks shouldn't be included. Fandom would be nothing without fans, if there was no one on the other end to look at what you've made and tell you how much they liked it there would be no fandom. However; people who only take and provide nothing, like those who repost art with zero credit, or who feed ideas into an AI for slop, they do not belong. I fully believe this.
If you do not have the drive to create, literally no one is forcing you to! Crazy concept I know. If you have an idea for a fic but you don't think you're a good writer, guess what you can do! Practice writing. You could even send in a request to a fic writer, they'd love that! There is no reason for you to use AI for writing Anything except sheer fucking laziness and disregard for those whose work has been stolen to create the garbage you are producing. The exact same goes for art, and any other medium you can think of.
This is a really long-winded way to say I'm tired. I want the fandom I grew up with back, I want to watch people create and share excitement for their favorite things. If I have to see another piece of AI slop on my timeline I'm going to be on the news. (Don't even get me started on celebrities who are using AI to promote their works, I will lose my mind.)
Now who would I be if i didn't leave you something to listen to?
An artist I really look up to right now is Tobias Forge; the mastermind behind the band Ghost. Someone who is absolutely killing it lately, and who has been creating purely for the love of it for almost 4 decades. (Specifically with Ghost for around half of that.) He had an idea and he stuck to it and he's created something that inspires me in so many different ways on a daily basis. In an era that seems so bleak for art it is reassuring to know there are still people like him out there who give a shit about the things they're making. Give Skeletá a listen if you haven't had the chance, it is so worth it.
- Yap to you later, Liss ~ "Be excellent to each other, and party on dudes!"
A bit of a late night entry tonight. It's around 2 AM as i'm writing this and I am listening to "The City Is At War" by Cobra Starship on loop, as I have been for like a week. Since my last post I've learned quite a Lot about html, and even more about css. I've completely redesigned this page, making it more cohesive with my other pages. As well as adding an entire page dedicated to talking about my favorite media.
I've been working on designing character profile pages for my OCs. So far, I've about half way completed Voltaire's, and I've just started Lily's. I'm excited to have a nice resource to share with people who are interested in them, instead of just gesturing sadly to my 1000's of random discord messages and shrugging. I hope to add more characters over time, (I have a Lot of characters,) but for now I'm starting with my 2 most important ones.
I've also been looking into different webrings but I'm a bit intimidated I won't lie, It seems like something for people with more experience? I'd love to join a few though. I am trying to make an effort to be a bit more social, and start conversations even if I'm scared, so maybe I will try applying for a few.
In other news, my hobbies have been popping off lately. I've started drawing something everyday, just so I'm not going days without creating. It's been really fun, I've been drawing mostly portraits, using crayons and other mixed materials like markers and colored pencils. It's been something different than what I'm used to so it's helping me kick my art block thank god. I was inspired by This Video to try this out and I'm so glad I did!
I've also started crocheting again after taking about a year off from doing anything extensive. I'm starting on a blanket inspired by the band Ghost, using a pattern i found online for a Grucifix square. I don't think I'm going to finish it anytime soon, but that's good. I need a project that will last me a while honestly, and it'll give me something to do while I watch stuff.
I was going to apologize for this post being a bit all over the place, but no. I'm not sorry, this is my page and that's exactly what it's for. Anyway, I hope you're doing well if you're reading this, thanks for reading my yap. I'll leave you with the song I mentioned earlier, give it a listen it's pretty good.
- Yap to you later, Liss ~ "Be excellent to each other, and party on dudes!"
I've always been intrigued by personal blogs, a space where you can make something truly your own. I'm old enough to remember a time where myspace was The social media, but not really old enough to have ever gotten to really enjoy it. By the time I was interested in having social media and posting online the web had already begun it's corporate dissent. Clean, white, minimalist layouts. "Optimizing" to remove as many buttons as possible and leave you with nothing but The Feed to forever scroll and consume. Any sort of personalization was gone, except for Tumblr.
Tumblr was where I got my first taste for customization, I made so many throwaway blogs just to play with the themes. Entire blogs dedicated to one subject just so I could have fun decorating my own little space online. I'd completely abandon them after setting them up and to this day I don't remember the log-in info for any of them, but I enjoyed it; and it taught me just enough about html that now, 10 years later, I remembered enough and was able to learn what I didn't to set up this website. It's nowhere near being done well, I know that, but I am having so much fun again.
In my late teens I lost interest for nearly everything. I stopped going on Tumblr because I didn't have anything I cared about. In my early 20's I became reclusive, separated myself from the rest of the world, and now I hardly ever post online out of fear. I've slowly started worming my way back into online spaces, and I'm brave enough now to post my art online. I have a really small following and an even smaller circle of friends but I'm happy again.
I made this website as a place for me to talk about the things that make me happy. My original characters being one of them. I spend most of each day just thinking about my characters and their stories, and then I never share them anywhere. I'm too scared to post about them on my socials because I have no control over the audience that may find them. They're very dear to me so I feel like I have to defend them if they're misunderstood; and with the current state of places like Twitter and Instagram I don't feel comfortable posting about my queer characters. So I've decided I will post about them here. In my own comfortable, safe, corner of the internet. Just like when I was younger and talking about my favorite characters on Tumblr. When I was unafraid to speak, because I hadn't convinced myself that no one wanted to hear me yet.
I plan to update this blog page pretty frequently. There's always Something on my mind, so I'll always have something to talk about. :3c That might be my characters, my art, upcoming products for my Etsy shop, music, movies, opinions,,, really and truly the possibilities are endless. I'm looking forward to yapping to you again, but for now this is it. I'll leave you with an album that i've been enjoying a LOT recently, 738 streams and counting!
- Yap to you later, Liss ~ "Be excellent to each other, and party on dudes!"