just for the record, related to the tags of that last post, i am extremely uncomfortable with the concept of people making archives of any of my art that isn't my comic. while i currently have no intentions to do so, if i ever decide i want to destroy my art off the internet, then it is probably because i do not want my art in stranger's hands. i would not ask you to remove my art from your personal files on your computer if it's just some piece of mine you liked cause i don't really care about that, but if i ever remove my art off the face of the earth, if you share it with anyone i'm hunting you down for sport. if you meticulously save every piece of art i have ever made and shared, if you "archive" my art, you need to stop and you need to delete it. my comic is the only exception to the archival rule because it's an entire story that goes together it's basically one big art piece in my head, so it doesn't count for that

Tumblr Im going to off myself please can I please post my art and stuff under tags again tumblr please tumblr

Chiho Saito’s 1999 Revolutionary Girl Utena Original Illustration Collection

IT’S HERE. IT’S DONE. IT’S FINISHED. NOW…IT’S YOURS. Happy Holidays, my friends.

Vanna here! I have posted some already about this project, and the responses I got, public and otherwise, have been absolutely incredible. Y’all have been reblogging and hyping this before it even finished…I haven’t felt so encouraged about an Utena project since the musicals! (Yes, streams soon, I promise.) You can read the other post to get more details, and catch my post here with more details about the process if you’re interested. The long and short of it?

This is the first artbook I ever scanned. I did it in 2001. In Photoshop, using multiple scans per page that took hours to process. But it was 2001. A half megabyte file that was 1250px wide was considered extremely hardcore and impressive. That’s just always been the business I’m in when it comes to Utena art, you know? 

It’s now the latest artbook I’ve scanned, and so much of the process, and effort involved, is unchanged. What has changed, is the result. Welcome to your new desktop background. Your new phone background. Your new poster print. 

What I’ve done here is attempt to create definitive digitized images of Chiho Saito’s work as offered by this book--I have removed the print moiré of the original scans, and used my literal decades of experience to try and tease out as much information from them as possible. Without being physically in front of the original artwork (which is a thing I’ve had the great fortune to get to do) this is The Most Chiho Saito you are ever going to get. I’ve tried my best to make sure there is a way to get it that works for everyone:

Do you just wanna scope 'em out? Look at some disaster gays? Grab your favorite one or two? This is the path for you! Check out the ‘compressed’ (not very) 10k ‘web friendly’ (not really) copy at the Bibliothèque, the media archiving wing of the Something Eternal forums at Empty Movement*. All the following links are also available from here. Do you want these copies? All of them? Don't just grab them individually, friend. This batch is 375MB and can be downloaded as a zip of the individual files here on our Google Drive.

Do you like digital archiving? Are you looking for a copy that preserves the archival quality of the effort but sits nice and comfy in a single file? This is for you. A minimally compressed 10k, 513MB version worked into a PDF is now up, shiny and chrome, on the Internet Archive. Do you like the idea of the minimal compression, but want the individual files in a zip? Yep I did that too, here's the drive link.

Are you looking to print these in a larger size? This is probably the only reason on Earth you’d ever want them, and yet a bunch of you are going to go straight for these. Here are the zero-compression JPG full size copies, most of them are 15k across, like simply a ridiculous size. Pick your fave and download it from our Google Drive! 

I am genuinely really proud of this work.** I was able to tease out so much new detail from these…her incredible layering techniques, the faintest brush of her highlights, and the full range of her delicate hand at whites and blacks… details commonly lost in digitization. I sincerely hope you find something here that you’re looking for, as an artist looking for inspiration, as a weeb looking for a desktop, as an archiver excited to see incredible 90s manga artwork saved forever in the digital realm. I feel like I have already said so much about them, and could keep going, but you know what? This work speaks for itself. Enjoy, use, explore, and definitely tell us what you think!

We love y’all. ~ Vanna & Yasha

* AHEM ASTERISK AHEM

You might be wondering what any of that is. Something Eternal? Biblewhatawhat??? EmptyMovement.com? You might even have done a double take at the word ‘forum.’ And you should!!!

I have a confession. This artbook was my ‘side project’ as I worked on this, *the main project.* For a couple years I’ve been banging around with a new domain, and originally I had other plans for it, but Elon Musk ruined my Twitter and Discord is well along on its way to enshittification, and well….we joke on the Discord a lot about ‘reject modernity, embrace forums’ and you know what? We’re right. So Yasha and I are putting our money where our mouths are once again, and doing something insane. We are launching, in 2023, a website forum. Obviously, this is not the official ‘launch’ per se, but I cannot announce the artbook without directing you to the forum, since it sits on the attached very cool gallery system. Oops! Told on myself. Another post more focused on the forum will be forthcoming, but if you are just that motivated to get in right away, you absolutely can! (This will help stagger new arrivals anyway, which is good for us!) If you would rather wait for the ‘official’ launch, by all means that’s coming, including a lengthy screed about how and why we’re doing this. In either case, remember: this is a couple weebs trying to make internet magic happen, we are not website developers by trade. Give us grace as we iron things out and grow into this cool new website thingie…hopefully along with some of you! :D

If you do join up, naturally, there is a thread about this project!

** If you like this kind of content, consider helping us pay for it! We do have a Patreon! If you’re wanting to use these in some public-facing distributive way, all we ask is for credit back to Empty Movement (ohtori.nu or emptymovement.com, either will work.) 

I would like to say ‘don’t just slap these files on RedBubble to get easy money’ but I know that saying this won’t effectively prevent it. Y’all that do that suck, but you’re not worth letting it rain on the rest of this parade. :)

ive finally managed to find some old art from 2022 yaay

old art related ramblings below

i had a really bad hard drive crash which resulted for all my stuff from 2020-2023 getting annihilated forever, and i managed to scrape some lost art and documents but i mostly had to built from the ground up now, BUT occasionally i manage to find either older savestates or (like in this case) old convos i had with people where i would share my art for fun, well, its still not on the same level as finding all of it, but even having bits and pieces archived makes me happy, i already had a bad past with relapses into negative habits which resulted in me hating everything i do, but now it happening without my personal decision finally made me realise how badly i need to have memories of my younger self preserved, ok it might sound a little sappy but im just glad that i can look at my past self and try to see what has changed and what has stayed the same, and the answer is me drawing random animal-eared agender chibis gotDAMN

(btw this isnt like worldbuilding or anything this is literally le random xd )

One thing that has been bothering me a lot over the past few days is seeing all these RIP YOI, RIP IceAdo, Remember YOI etc. posts. As someone who discovered YOI later, I'm watching this unfold from the sidelines and I'm seriously worrying what this is going to do to the fandom. I understand that you are sad because the movie was cancelled, everyone has the right to be sad about such a thing, and I'm not trying to invalidate your pain. But, and I'm saying this with all kindness and my best intentions, and hell, I'm not even the first one saying this, but please hear me out:

YOI IS NOT DEAD.

It did not die last Friday. And it doesn't die because there won't be a movie. No story in human history has ever died because someone decided it was over. Stories are forever. They live in the hearts of the people. And so has YOI been living in the hearts of its fans since October 6th 2016, and will continue to live there for as long as we want.

Whenever I type "Yuri On Ice" into the search field of any social network, web archive, or search engine, I see hundreds of thousands of hits, most of them fanworks. Please take a moment to think about what that means:

In the 7.5 years since YOI aired, fans have made tons of art, written fanfiction and metas, cosplayed YOI characters, created fan videos, crafted all kinds of fan-made merch, and so much more. You are the ones who brought into being an infinite multiverse centred around an anime that is already larger than life. You have already created so much more YOI than Sayo, Kubo, MAPPA etc. could ever create even if they made one hundred movies. And even if every country in the world turns fascist and bans YOI, it will survive because fans will always find ways to preserve it and the power its message holds. Only stories that nobody no longer talks and cares about fade in oblivion.

You hold all the power to keep YOI alive, but, and this is probably the hardest pill to swallow, that also makes you the only ones who are able to kill YOI - be it by stopping to create or talk about it, or by shouting its death from the rooftops because you fancy yourself dramatic, or by turning the fandom into a hate-infested toxic hellscape, whichever will occur first.

And I honestly don't know which of these I fear most.

If you truly love YOI, please do your share and continue to keep it alive.

Dark Academia Writing Prompts

A group of students stumble upon a hidden portal to a faerie realm in their college library. They slowly return from the faerie realm, corrupted.

A student uncovers a hidden society within the university's classics department. They are preserving an immortal being who used to be worshiped as a minor deity by the Ancient Greeks.

A secret society of faeries attend an Ivy League university, keeping their identities a secret. 

A love letter exchange unfolds between two strangers who communicate solely through notes left in the university library. However, if they ever discovered each other's true identities, the romance would break, and they would be horrified.

A mysterious playwright's lost manuscript is discovered in the dusty archives, revealing a dark and twisted tale that mirrors real-life events on campus.

A cellist sacrifices everything, even their morals, to join an elite orchestra. It's the pinnacle of their career. However, they left one string untied, and it threatens to expose everything they did.

A professor's death sparks an investigation that reveals a web of academic rivalries and betrayal. At the heart of it all is a plagiarism case.

A history major begins to unravel a murder that happened 100 years ago on campus. 

A witch disguises herself as a professor in the occult studies department, using her position to recruit students for a secret coven. 

A psychology professor uses hypnotic techniques to explore the past lives of students. During the hypnosis sessions, a student reveals something awful that their past life did. Something that's had a profound impact on the professor. 

A cursed painting in the university gallery comes to life at night. The characters within it seek the help of a talented art history major to break the spell. They work together to uncover what dark forces made this happen in the first place.

A professor's fascination with ancient folklore prompts a mischievous faerie to seek their help. The faerie asks them to help unlock an ancient riddle. The professor does it, fuelled by academic curiosity, but this turns out to be a huge mistake.

A group of history students uncover evidence of a witch trial that took place on campus centuries ago. One of the victims shown in the painting bears an uncanny resemblance to a current professor. As they investigate, it becomes clear someone’s trying to stop them.

A student journalist investigates a series of mysterious deaths linked to an exclusive literature club. The murders seems to be drawing inspiration from works of literature.

A rivalry emerges between two aspiring poets who will sink to depraved acts for the coveted position of poet laureate. They'll do anything to get that prize, including murder.

By: schoolofplot

My articles on Dark Academia:

Dark Academia aesthetic

The imaginary of Dead Poets Society

The Secret History a key fandom

✨Fairies Finds✨: New Early Artwork and Promotional Video from 2005 Disney Fairies Japan Website with Gail Carson Levine- Author of Fairy Dust Trilogy

Fly with you everyone and happy Friday the 13th! I have been looking into Disney Fairies pre-release stuff ever since some early stuff was posted into Art of Disney Fairies. I have also been interested in media preservation since late 2017 when I found Web Back Then. Truthfully, despite having this interest when trying to find the old Disney Fairies games from my childhood- I never really shared much with the world. I feel like I should remedy that! (this find is relatively recent though I found it yesterday!)

This is a video I found on the Internet Archive from disneyfairies.jp, a promotional page on the Disney Japan website that seems disconnected from the main Disney Fairies page which was a clone of the original website. See here

Through some research the gist of the video is this:

The video starts with an introduction to the original Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie, which is interjected with clips from Disney's Peter Pan. Then we see more artwork of Disney Fairies- including unfamilar designs including early Vidia, Rani, Fira etc. According to Part of the Magic, Disney Fairies started development in early 2001- the series was launched fully in 2005. Then Gail (dubbed of course) begins to describe the plot of Fairy Dust and the Quest for the Egg whilst we see several pictures of this early Disney Fairies art. Interesting pictures as we get to see the very early designs of Disney Fairies characters that I have never seen before.

Interestingly, this video was never embedded on the page, you had to download it and play it through a video player such as Windows Media Player or Real Player, it was 2005 after all.

Here is the screen you'd see when you'd want to watch this promotional video. I recognize the leaves used in early flash games such as Lightball Challenge, Dragonfly Race etc.

A page on the website that I found with my decomplier, i couldn't view it normally!

I tried looking for this video in English to no avail, or any version on the internet. It must have only been accessible through this website.

Interestingly, I found this other page whilst doing my page digging thing again and found this, suggesting this was also a Japan exclusive and not for the American market ... and there is more early promotional stuff to be found in relation to Disney Fairies!

I also looked into one the main book artists on the creative team, Judith Holmes Clarke. She had a website I found on her IMDB page, that was live around 2017-2019. I saw this and wanted to add it as it had one of the stills in this video. It also has a sketch of Rosetta and Tink. This is what I found:

It is probably a scan of this magazine, Disney Newsreel, mentioned on her IMDB.

Overall, I'm super happy with this find and I'm so happy to share it with you all!! I will be happy to share more now that I'm publicly outing myself not just as this fan of children's fairy media- an archivist. gasp...

Also probably making a website/blog which I will share later and will be in the About Me link with my other socials.

And believe me, this is just the beginning

👀

I have been having so many thoughts about my anni/lily au my guy-

Basically, there are two kingdoms, one (the Tenma kingdom) says music should be used to emphasize the world's good, the other (the Shiraishi kingdom) says it should heal and acknowledge the bad, and they don't really like each others. The kids in the first (1st anni + Saki, Airi, Toya, Emu, Mizuki) are all connected to the royal court in some way, while those in the second (2nd anni + Shiho, Haruka, An, Nene, Ena) are connected to the Clockwork Museum, a place that preserves the arts.

Eventually, the kids in each group begin to interact across lines, and they begin to realize that they aren't so different. They try to push for the kingdoms to make amends, with...less than pretty results...

Hundreds of years later in what may or may not be another dimension, the group leaders are reincarnated into the regular prsk world as minor dieties (3rd anni cards) meant to help the groups, but they and their respective 2nd anni kid in their group begin to have memories of their previous lives.

Additional Ruikasa under the cut because I've been thinking about these two in my au a lot-

Tsukasa is the crown prince of his kingdom, and is dead set on the idea that music should only be used to bring smiles, nothing else. His kingdom's beliefs leave him a bit stubborn, and make acknowledging when he himself feels negative things difficult. He is closest with Saki, his sister and more of a carefree royal, and Toya, the reluctant conductor for the royal symphony that's like a brother to him.

Rui is a lonely man that lives within the Clockwork Museum, a former actor who works to archive plays, alongside toys and robots, which he himself makes at times. He used to do shows alongside Nene, a songstress with a magical voice, but they drifted apart over time.

Tsukasa eventually stumbles across the Museum for plot reasons I've yet to figure out, and he is appalled by it at first. How could songs about sad things be helpful? Rui is a bit turned off by Tsukasa's stubborn nature and closed-mindedness at first as well, but as they end up spending more time together they start to like and respect each other more. Tsukasa helps Rui see his own worth and reach out to others more, and Rui helps Tsukasa be more in touch with his emotions and improve himself as a ruler and musician.

Eventually, they and the others try working to bring the two kingdoms together as they realize their similarities, but this leads to basically a bounty against these twenty newly-wanted criminals, even when a lot of them were royalty, celebrities, artisans, everything. The two of them end up in the courtyard of Tsukasa's castle, smoke hanging in the air, aware that they will be executed soon, and they decide to spend their last moments ballroom dancing to a music box Rui had made for them before things got so difficult, tears falling down their faces, not only from fear, but from content that they were able to die together.

-

Tsukasa Tenma is a god of happiness, blessed with powers perfect for shows such as telekinesis and element manipulation. He initially starts out simply helping a pair of sibling pianists smile, before finding a girl trying to start a theater troupe to save a struggling stage.

As she and Tsukasa work to find members, he comes across inventor and performer Rui, the two instantly finding themselves drawn to each other, not only because of their abilities, but because of the fuzzy memories that appear in their minds after they meet.

An off-key music box, a slow dance at the end of the world...

Hi I'm Foone Turing. I've been here a while but never really did an introduction post, so...

Hi. Yes, that's my name. I'm an asexual trans enby (they/them pronouns), I'm married, and I'm both older than you expect and younger than you expect, depending on what you know me from. I'm a writer and programmer. I'm better known on Twitter, at the moment. I'm well known for being severely ADHD and I'm also on the autism spectrum, somewhere near ultraviolet. I live near Oakland, California, USA, but I grew up on a farm in the south. I'm a furry, but I don't have a fursona yet.

I'm big into retrotech stuff, especially floppy disks. 80s and 90s PC stuff mainly, but I have a passing interest in everything else. I loves me some weird tech that you have no idea ever existed. I'm also big into analog media. VHS tapes, laserdiscs, that sort of thing.

Fandom wise, I'm a Trekie from way back, primarily in the TNG/DS9/VOY/ENT era. I haven't yet gotten into the new stuff, and I have only a passing knowledge of the original series. I'm also a big fan of Babylon 5, Red Dwarf, and Doctor Who (4th doctor, and new who doctors 9,10,11). I watch a bunch of British panel shows: HIGNFY, Mock the Week, Nevermind the Buzzcocks, 8 out of 10 cats (primarily the countdown spinoff).

I am a Big Hater on crytypocurrentseas and AI art. I used to be famously mad at the JWST, but now that it's in space and functional, I've calmed down. They just need to rename it and I'm golden.

I'm currently splitting my social media presence across three sites:

* Tumblr, obviously. Shitposting, jokes, queer stuff, and queer joke shitposts are all going here.

* mastodon: I'm putting my tech stuff here. Teardowns, building new death generators, fun historical weirdness.

* Twitter: formerly my primary platform, but now I just use it to keep in touch with people and make fun of the impending collapse of Twitter.

Stuff I do and have done after the readmore.

(I'm on mobile now but I'll get back to this on the desktop and add more links)

* I run lettuce.wtf, a webcam showing a lettuce to see if it will outlast Twitter. (My money is literally on the lettuce)

* my long running site The Death Generator: a tool for making fake video game screenshots, with user supplied dialogue.

* I run some Twitter bots, one of which is more popular than me, and all of which will need to be migrated soon: Gay Cats, WinIcons, Print Shop Deluxe, and Every Clue Line.

* I got Microsoft 3D Movie Maker open sourced

* I got rickrolled so hard that it ended up on national TV

* I ran doom on a pregnancy test

* I have made many horrible and weird keyboards. Keyboards with hair, keyboards which write poetry, keyboards that take 5 hours to say "hello world", keyboards with randomly placed keys, keyboards with 7 toggle switches instead of buttons, and many more.

* I tear down random electronics and try to figure out and explain how they work. (originally on Twitter, but moving over to mastodon now)

* I pissed off the FBI on more than one occasion. They tried to get me fired, they delayed my wedding by over a month, and they mentioned my 4chan nickname in a federal trial.

* I used to work for 4chan. I was a moderator and coder, I created /rs/ and /r9k/, and I convinced moot to destroy the original politics board (for obvious reasons). Things went further to shit after I left, but I am still glad I left. Oh and I also inadvertently prevented the creation of the 4chan dating/meet up site by being too ADHD to actually complete development of it. You're welcome.

* I ran a windows 95 machine for the maximum amount of time. There's a bug where it crashes after 49.7 days of uptime, so I let it happen. I livestreamed the end on YouTube.

* I've done exhibits at the Vintage Computer Festival on the history of floppy disks and optical discs.

* I've worked with the Video Game History Foundation (and others) to preserve old games and game development resources (source code and such). I'm big into archival!

* I wrote a really famous Twitter thread about the surprising way our vision works, which is still circulating in screenshots (including on Tumblr!) something like 5-6 years later.

* I made my old apartment play the Zelda Ocarina of Time shop music when you walked I the door.

* I run the Tumblr animefloppies, collecting screenshots and GIFs of floppy disks in anime.

* I run several other sub-tumblrs for collecting weird things, but I'll have to link them later.

* I am technically a speedrunner. I did the TAS of Duke Nukem 1, episode 1, and a joke speedrun of Solar Winds, where I beat the game by ignoring every single possible objective and just flying to the end, which takes over an hour.

* I used to make games. Some of them are available for download.

* but it still do, too: I'm working on a (currently unnamed) game about managing a dairy farm. Both the developers have ADHD. This is going to take forever before it comes out, if it ever does.

* I'm currently working on three books. Two are compilations of stuff previously twitterized, one is a novel:

- Always Screaming Forever: non-fiction, stories about my career in the tech industry and various other tech/science/history stuff I love ranting about.

- The Other Side of Screaming: fiction. My short stories.

- Mundane Kaya Sona (placeholder title): a linguist gets pulled into an FBI investigation into a car crash. An unknown language leads to the discovery of a wizard living in a forest in Oregon, and an interdimensional plot to smuggle nuclear weapons to another world, and break a cold war stalemate we (the planet earth) didn't realize we were in. I've been working on the setting for this story since I was about 7 years old, and I'm excited to finally get it out of my head and into yours.

* I'm probably forgetting like 5-10 major things I've done but ADHD is a hell of a drug. I'll add more as they come to me.

NSFW and the importance of AO3

My biggest concern if Twitter really die is nsfw artist and sex workers. Us NSFW artist has been betrayed time and time again by many platform who used to welcome us then spit us out once the platform is big enough or to bow down to advertisers.

TikTok censorship is beyond ridiculous

Pinterest wouldn't even allow topless art of a woman

Instagram too not that friendly to nsfw artist

Tumblr banned porn post 2018 and wouldn't hesitate to delete your blog

I'm not sure about pillowfort i heard it's allow nsfw but not as free as twitter? Correct me if I'm wrong tho i never use it

Facebook? Nah i wouldn't even bother.

There's Pixiv but it's not accessible for all people

Mastodon is still new and frankly many said that it has a steep learning curve

DeviantArt turned it's back both to both nsfw and sfw artist with their censorship (literally i see more and more artist who have to censor tits, cock, asshole and even pussy) and also their bullshit piece of shit AI generation + stealing from artist for their generator

Sites like Rule 34 and Hentai site are there but they are not really platform to grow your audience as an artist + too many art thief

Patreon I heard implementing more censorship? It's not social media but many artist using it

Poipiku is a Japanese platform and not all people are native Japan speaker

The fucking dystopian corporations like apple and Google ( and purity culture both in fandom and non fandom) keep sanitizing the internet and wiped out nsfw content for profit (it's not for protecting children or blah blah blah it's all for ads) kicking out all nsfw content creators from all platform they touch, forcing us to wander with no home to express ourselves. NSFW artist still have some wiggle room to thrive but I think sex workers have it harder to thrive on a more mainstream platform...

I know there's many sites for sex workers like for camgirl or whatever but mainstream sites that once more accepting of nsfw has been kicking down sex workers down to the curb again and again and again

If Twitter let's say goes down suddenly or gradually goes down and maybe banning nsfw... Artist will lost the last mainstream global platform that allow them to grow an audience as an nsfw artist

This for fandom nsfw artist who are not using site like poipiku and pixiv it left us with only AO3 to store our art

Yes you can post art to AO3 just tag it as art, literally it is the best safe haven for writing + art with it's mission to protect people creation, they even have lawyer and stuff to protect your rights + AO3 is super nsfw friendly literally you can upload anything that is legal within the USA law (that's a lot of things, thank God it's not based on my country Indonesia law or you wouldn't even see gay people kissing)

But AO3 is primarily used for fanfic + it's not a social media and shouldn't ever be a social media, it is an archive to preserve fanwork. It is fanwork library of Alexandria. The downside because it's not a social media and thus doesn't have features like chatting, algorithm and stuff is that it's harder for you to grow like in other social media. Let's say Twitter really gone if i want to post a series of comic/manga

Then i have to post the sfw/censored pages to Tumblr + post the nsfw page to AO3 it'll be a hassle for both me and my readers but it's possible

Still such a hassle and it'll be easier to just post to Twitter or when Tumblr still allowed nsfw

Also original artist will find it harder to gain audience faster on Tumblr and AO3 because both website are primarily for fandom. Like i can draw a sketch of let's say Anakin Skywalker and it'll get more traction than a fully rendered piece of original artwork

I mean it's possible but if you want to get traction easily as an original artist your art have to be godlike to be noticed amongst seas of fanart that the general public sees as more favorable... I mean you can try to build audience with doing fanwork and once you got big you can post more OG art

Still... It's easier to grow as an original artist on Twitter than on Tumblr or other platform...

Look yeah it's fun to see Twitter on fire but if it's really gone it'll be a disaster for nsfw creators/artist especially those who are making money from it to keep the roof above their head. I hope Twitter doesn't die tbh (I only made acc to see nsfw art, if Tumblr didn't ban porn i wouldn't even bother to use it or too many social media) also this situation brought back the reminder of AO3 importance as the safest and biggest archive especially for nsfw writers and fan artist that keep losing places to post their work, express themselves and earn a living

It's been a few weeks since I had new books to share, but I finally got photos taken of the newest ones so today's the day. Here, have a book:

This is Across Tides and Currents, a Good Omens siren AU by Sodium_Azide and @doorwaytoparadise (hi. I hope I tagged you right). My favorite thing about this AU is that, at its heart, it's about learning to communicate with someone who is so different from you that you can't even physically speak each other's language, and yet you've still got so much common ground that you find a way. It's way lighter and more fun than that description makes it sound, though, so go read it if that's your thing.

The cover on this is Lineco book cloth, scrapbook paper printed to look like leather, and blue foil htv. The foil was actually a nightmare to do. The first time I applied it, it wouldn't stick no matter what I did, and the bits that did stick peeled off as soon as I touched them. I had to peel them up very carefully, cut a new image, and try again. Thankfully it worked the second time but I don't know that I'll be using the foil type again unless there's no other way to get the color I want. The non-foil metallic was so much easier to work with.

More book photos under the cut!

I went with a coptic bind for this one for a few reasons. The first was that I wanted to try one on a quarto-size book to see if I could. I also wanted to try the mitered corners thing I did when I bound Strange Moons, and see if I could have the same effect on the interior. (That bit didn't work out so well; the front is fine but I mismeasured the inside and the lines didn't match up, so I trimmed some pieces of cardstock to cover that up. I really like the layered look though, so that's fine. It's quirky.) The third reason is that not long before I decided to bind this one, the authors published a new chapter after two years of no updates. That's the best possible reason to have to change plans, and the glueless bind means that if they ever do that again I can just redo the stitching to add more pages. Win-win.

Getting whimsical with title pages here. This took way longer than I thought it would, probably because I don't like graphic design and I did it in Word where I do the rest of my typesetting. Usually what I do is grab an image and put text around it or on top of it and then just play with fonts and sizes, but this time I drew the lines and then made the text follow them. This is the first time I've used the word art feature since...probably 2009? I'd forgotten how. I have no doubt there are better ways to do this but if I'd had to learn a new program at that point I'd have quit. And I do think it was worth it--it's cute and fun and looks about how I imagined it.

Couple of photos of the inside. Sorry the first one's blurry, I had someone trying to get my attention when I took these. The section break image came from rawpixel, I just made it gray instead of black so it's more subtle. The fic has very nice illustrations that I specifically got the artist's permission to print and then I failed to get any photos of them when I did my little photo shoot. They look very nice, though. I swear.

The last image is something I've started including in my latest books. I'm calling them "A Note from the Bookbinder" and it's basically just me talking about why I chose that story, the experience of reading it for the first time, stuff that's going on in the fandom, stuff about the process like the new chapter coming out as I was preparing to print. It's kind of...like marginalia? Part of fanbinding is preservation and that's linked to archival work, and something I know archivists love is marginalia and diaries. I don't like writing in my books and I've never found any fun in journaling, but sometimes that kind of context is important so I'm trying to add it. Someday, decades from now, I may not remember all the details, so I'm trying to preserve them. IDK, this got philosophical on me. Go read about mermaids now. Promise it's a good time.

- Aftermath anon (Or old anon of consequences/ref,or anon who likes STM) I didn't expect you to anwer my ask that soon, thank you.

During time when human became an archivist,but museum was opened somewhere recently:Since there's no more humans found after war and at beginnig of new age, Human is probably last specimen of their kind. How do they feel about that?

Well, how do you think they felt? Probably incredibly lonely and sad that they get to see the end of their race's last traces on this planet. It's a recipe for an existential crisis and hopelessness. Even still, the human works overtime to make sure that their people will be well documented and their existence archived in the museum. All of humanity's history locked away in fireproof, waterproof, and blast resistant boxes and vaults. They work every single day and try to document even the littlest of things with the borrowed time they have left on the planet. Papers, files, films, production records, innovative inventions, and yes--even the creation and prototypes of all the devices the hardwares use as their own heads. They want to make sure that the future knows that they existed at one point. That humans once walked this world and have long since passed on into the other life. Leaving the planet in the care of their successors. Human holidays, values, books, artwork, history, evolution, and how their people came to a sad and unfortunate end. They even leave preserved samples of their own blood, hair, and even preserved pieces of their flesh for studies in the future and as a record of what humans were made of. They write their own biography, collect trinkets and pieces of art, pages and papers of treaties, and videos of humanity's greatest achievements--whether it was finding the cure for scarlet fever or walking on the surface of our moon. The human works endlessly, day after day, making sure that the history of not just their own people, but ALL of humanity is included in this museum. Even when they become older and frailer, they still work endlessly. Their dedication is so great, that they even swear to offer their body to the exhibit, just to make sure that they have the clearest and most preserved specimen in the entire collection once they inevitably pass away. But until that moment in time, they work and can only hope that somewhere out there...far away...humans still survive and exist in peace and safety. Now knowing that the Skibidis are gone and the world has been saved.

May I ask what scanners / equipment / software you're using in the utena art book project? I'm an artist and half the reason I rarely do traditional art is because I'm never happy with the artwork after it's scanned in. But the level of detail even in the blacks of Utena's uniform were all captured so beautifully! And even the very light colors are showing up so well! I'd love to know how you manage!

You know what's really fun? This used to be something you put in your site information section, the software and tools used! Not something that's as normal anymore, but let's give it a go, sorry it's long because I don't know what's new information and what's not! Herein: VANNA'S 'THIS IS AS SPECIFIC AS MY BREAK IS LONG' GUIDE/AIMLESS UNEDITED RAMBLE ABOUT SCANNING IMAGES

Scanning: Modern scanners, by and large, are shit for this. The audience for scanning has narrowed to business and work from home applications that favor text OCR, speed, and efficiency over archiving and scanning of photos and other such visual media. It makes sense--there was a time when scanning your family photographs and such was a popular expected use of a scanner, but these days, the presumption is anything like that is already digital--what would you need the scanner to do that for? The scanner I used for this project is the same one I have been using for *checks notes* a decade now. I use an Epson Perfection V500. Because it is explicitly intended to be a photo scanner, it does threebthings that at this point, you will pay a niche user premium for in a scanner: extremely high DPI (dots per inch), extremely wide color range, and true lossless raws (BMP/TIFF.) I scan low quality print media at 600dpi, high quality print media at 1200 dpi, and this artbook I scanned at 2400 dpi. This is obscene and results in files that are entire GB in size, but for my purposes and my approach, the largest, clearest, rawest copy of whatever I'm scanning is my goal. I don't rely on the scanner to do any post-processing. (At these sizes, the post-processing capacity of the scanner is rendered moot, anyway.) I will replace this scanner when it breaks by buying another identical one if I can find it. I have dropped, disassembled to clean, and abused this thing for a decade and I can't believe it still tolerates my shit. The trade off? Only a couple of my computers will run the ancient capture software right. LMAO. I spent a good week investigating scanners because of the insane Newtype project on my backburner, and the quality available to me now in a scanner is so depleted without spending over a thousand on one, that I'd probably just spin up a computer with Windows 7 on it just to use this one. That's how much of a difference the decade has made in what scanners do and why. (Enshittification attacks! Yes, there are multiple consumer computer products that have actually declined in quality over the last decade.)

Post-processing: Photoshop. Sorry. I have been using Photoshop for literally decades now, it's the demon I know. While CSP is absolutely probably the better piece of software for most uses (art,) Photoshop is...well it's in the name. In all likelihood though, CSP can do all these things, and is a better product to give money to. I just don't know how. NOTENOTENOTE: Anywhere I discuss descreening and print moire I am specifically talking about how to clean up *printed media.* If you are scanning your own painting, this will not be a problem, but everything else about this advice will stand! The first thing you do with a 2400 dpi scan of Utena and Anthy hugging? Well, you open it in Photoshop, which you may or may not have paid for. Then you use a third party developer's plug-in to Descreen the image. I use Sattva. Now this may or may not be what you want in archiving!!! If fidelity to the original scan is the point, you may pass on this part--you are trying to preserve the print screen, moire, half-tones, and other ways print media tricks the eye. If you're me, this tool helps translate the raw scan of the printed dots on the page into the smooth color image you see in person. From there, the vast majority of your efforts will boil down to the following Photoshop tools: Levels/Curves, Color Balance, and Selective Color. Dust and Scratches, Median, Blur, and Remove Noise will also be close friends of the printed page to digital format archiver. Once you're happy with the broad strokes, you can start cropping and sizing it down to something reasonable. If you are dealing with lots of images with the same needs, like when I've scanned doujinshi pages, you can often streamline a lot of this using Photoshop Actions.

My blacks and whites are coming out so vivid this time because I do all color post-processing in Photoshop after the fact, after a descreen tool has been used to translate the dot matrix colors to solids they're intended to portray--in my experience trying to color correct for dark and light colors is a hot mess until that process is done, because Photoshop sees the full range of the dots on the image and the colors they comprise, instead of actually blending them into their intended shades. I don't correct the levels until I've descreened to some extent.

As you can see, the print pattern contains the information of the original painting, but if you try to correct the blacks and whites, you'll get a janky mess. *Then* you change the Levels:

If you've ever edited audio, then dealing with photo Levels and Curves will be familiar to you! A well cut and cleaned piece of audio will not cut off the highs and lows, but also will make sure it uses the full range available to it. Modern scanners are trying to do this all for you, so they blow out the colors and increase the brightness and contrast significantly, because solid blacks and solid whites are often the entire thing you're aiming for--document scanning, basically. This is like when audio is made so loud details at the high and low get cut off. Boo.

What I get instead is as much detail as possible, but also at a volume that needs correcting:

Cutting off the unused color ranges (in this case it's all dark), you get the best chance of capturing the original black and white range:

In some cases, I edit beyond this--for doujinshi scans, I aim for solid blacks and whites, because I need the file sizes to be normal and can't spend gigs of space on dust. For accuracy though, this is where I'd generally stop.

For scanning artwork, the major factor here that may be fucking up your game? Yep. The scanner. Modern scanners are like cheap microphones that blow out the audio, when what you want is the ancient microphone that captures your cat farting in the next room over. While you can compensate A LOT in Photoshop and bring out blacks and whites that scanners fuck up, at the end of the day, what's probably stopping you up is that you want to use your scanner for something scanners are no longer designed to do well. If you aren't crazy like me and likely to get a vintage scanner for this purpose, keep in mind that what you are looking for is specifically *a photo scanner.* These are the ones designed to capture the most range, and at the highest DPI. It will be a flatbed. Don't waste your time with anything else.

Hot tip: if you aren't scanning often, look into your local library or photo processing store. They will have access to modern scanners that specialize in the same priorities I've listed here, and many will scan to your specifications (high dpi, lossless.)

Ahem. I hope that helps, and or was interesting to someone!!!

Murderbot Fic Rec List: Ghosts

October is approaching, and it seems like a good time of year for some ghost stories!! (These are not all horror, and some aren’t even scary—if you’re looking for actual chills I’m not the person to go to, lol. These are just stories with ghosts.)

Mayday, Mayday, Mayday by TheSteelChimera 638 words, Teen And Up, Creator Chose Not To Warn

Ghosts aren't real, all evidence points to the fact that human superstition is just that, superstition.But wormholes are strange places, and the MNTS Perihelion knows that ghost ships are very real.

A ghost story featuring ART, and the last echoes of lost ships. The mysteries of wormhole physics are a perfect explanation for hearing voices in the void. I also highly, highly recommend the podfic by DevilWithABirdDress, which has some echoes and effects that absolutely enhance the spooky atmosphere.

Ill Omen by avg 5,511 words, General Audiences, Creator Chose Not To Warn & No Archive Warnings Apply

Despite the positive attributes of a ship ghost, there is one omen associated with its presence: no member of a ship blessed by its presence shall ever set eyes on it. It only ever becomes visible to the crew of a doomed ship.

An alternate universe ASR where Murderbot is a ghost!! Binding souls to survey habitats as a security service is absolutely something the company would do if it had that capability. Supernatural suspense and haunting as protection—the fantasy/sci-fi flavor of this one is very cool.

The Stowaway by Masu_Trout 2,712 words, Teen And Up, No Archive Warnings Apply

I wasn't even worried. That, I think, was my first mistake. Far outside of Corporation Rim, Murderbot meets a cargo bot with a strange story to tell.

A gem from wayyy back in the archive, published in 2017 when only ASR was out, but still impressively consistent with the tone of where the series has gone! Murderbot hears a ghost story that it doesn’t really believe, but then again…. This one also has a podfic available. the past is no forgotten promise by lunaTactics 1,942 words, General Audience, No Archive Warnings Apply

"It should have been creepy. I had been in places like this that were really creepy. But this wasn't. Maybe because I knew where the humans and augmented humans who had last used this ship had gone, that their descendants were running around all over this system." How can the ghosts of the past be frightening when they love, and are loved?     Remember us. We are a promise to you that there will always be hope.     You are home. The ghosts of the Pressy speak to their successors. Or, Murderbot is empowered to pursue the ideal SecUnit's rescue because Preservation's ideals support it.

A heartwarming ghost story, to finish off the list. Sometimes ghosts aren’t trying to scare you or keep you away—they want to welcome you home. This one gives me emotions (enough that I made art about it) and also has a podfic available.

If you have any favorite ghost stories from the Murderbot fandom, or otherwise spooky/seasonally-appropriate ones, please feel free to add on other recommendations! There’s several that I haven’t read myself but have heard many good things about.

What happened to all of your art on Twitter if you mind me asking. I recently checked your page and all of the past art went missing. Did you remove them?

I did remove them! Those pieces are all still up here on my tumblr for you to see, all tagged so they shouldn't be hard to find.

The reason is a combination of two things: art preservation and the dreaded Musk.

When my hard drive bit the dust and I lost most of my art pieces, I downloaded my Twitter archive and systemically went through every media piece I uploaded and saved them. That way even if I couldn't recover the original full-size piece, at least the remnants of what I've made over the years could still be mine to reminisce on. It's the place where I used to post the most sketches and unfinished art, too, so there was lots there to recover (as well as art friends and fans have made for me over the years, too). I deleted the posts as I saved them to help me keep track of what I had and had not saved.

Another reason is the whole (gestures vaguely) state of Twitter. It's kinda weird to use and I'm still trying to figure out how I want to utilize it in the future. I'm leaning toward a pretty strict 'gallery and announcements only' route at the moment.

So yeah. Kind of a soft Twitter reset. I'm going to be doing the same with my Insta actually, I just haven't had the time to go through it yet!

Heya! The topic of old Zelda fancomics came up in a Discord I'm in--while educating the younger fans about the days of yore, I got curious to see if the Web Archive had managed to preserve enough of IndieZelda to be readable or not. The answer was basically no (just the lovely mid 00's page layout and a few graphics, sadly!)

...so I thought I'd go directly to the source and ask if you still had any of your IndieZelda comic series page files hanging around? If you do, would you be up for uploading them to archive.org as a zip or pdf or something, for fandom posterity?

As a comic artist myself, I understand if you'd prefer to just let your old work vanish from the internet entirely... but those old comics were a huge influence on me, and I truly believe every artist's early work is worth preserving and studying.

Anyway, just thought I'd ask! Hope you're doing well!

Oh wow, thank you for remembering me! And for the kind words. I try not to get myself down about my older stuff. And I was lucky to have a lot of support over the years where people gave me space to grow.

I'm happy to say all the comics from Indie Zelda are preserved over on History of Hyrule thanks to my good friend and Zelda archivist, Melora!

Go here to History of Hyrule's comic section, and you'll find my comics if you just scroll down.

You should also be able to download them as zip files as well. I just gave Hyrule Downtown a quick glance because I was worried about inappropriate stuff and I can't say I understand the humour today lol. I also think Ganondorf would be the cleanest one of the three. But tastes change as you age. And I think Liza Minelli is great.

I've also been giving Melora my print comics to archive as time passes. But I've also put some of those up for free download on my Ko-Fi shop:

Zelda 25

Twilight Princess Series

Space for Us Among The Clouds (Skyward Sword)

It's missing the Dark Mirror series, but that's because I'd like to finish it one day.

It is hard for me to look at my old stuff, but it's good to keep my ego in check and again remind myself how far I've been able to get because people cared enough about me and my work. It's not just me. Art is a collective experience, which is where the fun is. Also, it takes the mystery out of becoming an artist to those that want to get into the process. I don't believe hiding that away, so if being vulnerable and letting people into that helps someone, then that's worth it.