ames ♤♡

illustrator of comics // maker of SOHAE // cj’s personal pfp provider // 26 // they/them

[amesliu]

hi i'm an illustrator, comic artist, and designer

commissions: flat rate commissions are closed. open to illustration project inquiries.

side blog: @sadlocalrat // ko-fi // mailing list

tiktok // instagram // twitter // portfolio site

strung out heart, angel eyes (webcomic, completed) @strungoutheart pop-punk!percy x popstar!annabeth

sohae specific faq + navigation here

FAQ

SOHAE FAQ HERE!

⚠️ art use⚠️

for pfps/headers etc: credit when possible for reposts: easily visible and accessible credit must be included, asking first is preferred for edits: easily visible and accessible credit (tag me so I can see it) absolutely no commercial use

What programs do you use?

Procreate and photoshop. Illustrator for comic lettering.

What brushes do you use?

Procreate: mainly 6b sketch and Tamar for full colour drawings, 6b sketch + andreaga’s watercolour brushes for comic inks Photoshop: KYLE Ultimate Charcoal Pencil

[amesliu]

i just know sohae annabeths dumb ass would’ve written how you get the girl about luke when they got back together ugh

[amesliu]

enough. it’s enough slices. it’s been enough slices.

[amesliu]

Music AU Percabeth for Met Gala Heavenly Bodies based off the Bourges Cathedral (now with a close up crop) my original post au masterlist

Honestly I had a lot of fun designing this and my love for them is second only to my love of designing things and talking about designing things.

[amesliu]

sometimes i think about the original version of some sohae scenes and cringe like when you have an embarrassing memory

[amesliu]

still cracks me up lowkey

[amesliu]

first time using zbrush gang gang

[amesliu]

i don’t really understand why they can’t just visually chain reblogs without changing everything else about it? why do they want to chain reblogs to begin with? there was a beta feature you could use to see who reblogged from whom and how a post spread in the beta testing features why is that not an option?

[inkskinned]

you may be thinking that some of the reactions to the tumblr update are unfounded or panicky. but i meant what i said: this will fucking destroy any artist on this site.

for your reference, i tracked down one of my original posts; which had a notes section that looked like this:

and here is what it looks like now:

holy shit. by my math, that is not even two percent of the amount of aggregate notes my writing actually has. i am not able to see any of the literal hundreds of replies, comments, or tags.

maybe this is a bit presumptuous but i consider myself to be fairly popular on this site. i still remember the first time a large blog "picked up" my work - how quickly all of a sudden i was getting seen. notes on my poetry jumped from like 10 to 300 to 3k. overnight. that was the magic of tumblr, and the incredible writing community i found here.

but now if i answer any of my fellow writers, if i say please go check this out or even if i add additional context to my own work - the artist is removed completely from their own content.

do you want to reply to an "ask game"? do you want to reply to a story prompt? do you want to just make a funny joke with your friends? well, that sucks - you might be depriving them of literally 98% of their notes.

it isn't about clout chasing. it is about giving creators control over their own materials. even a silly post deserves to be connected directly with the person that thought it up.

the tumblr feedback form is currently crashed for me, but when it's up, everyone please go (politely! calmly! like you're walking in a burning building!) tell them what you think. in the meantime: @staff @changes like... i am begging you. literally just set up a suggestion box for ideas on how to monetize tumblr, surely one of us can help you.

[amesliu]

actually so pissed off about the new tumblr update are you fkin kidding me with this rn why does every site hate creators

[amesliu]

@changes i want you to know how fucking idiotic a change has to be for me to send feedback to support.

[bardic-tales]

The Death of the Digital Ecosystem: Why Decoupling Notes Destroys Tumblr

@changes (Edit: I already sent this to Tumblr Support under the feedback option. I encourage everyone to send feedback on how bad this feature actually is).

For years, the total note count on a post served as a universal metric of a piece of content's impact. Whether a user liked the original post or a reblog fifteen branches deep, that engagement flowed back to the source. This ensured that the original artist, writer, or editor received the full credit for the viral success of their work.

Under this new system, engagement is trapped within the specific reblog a user happens to see on their dashboard. If a massive, high-traffic blog reblogs a piece of art from a small creator, every like and reblog that occurs through that larger account stays with them. The original creator is left with a stagnant note count on their own dashboard while their work generates thousands of interactions for someone else.

Erasure of Creator Visibility

Instead of seeing one post with 10,000 notes, a creator may now have to hunt through dozens of different reblog chains to find where the conversation is actually happening.

If the notes no longer flow back to the original post, the creator loses the ability to see who is enjoying their work, what the tags say, and how the community is responding.

On a platform where engagement often dictates visibility, splitting that engagement into tiny, unlinked fractions makes it significantly harder for original works to gain momentum compared to the high-reach blogs that reblog them.

Incentivizing the "Big Blog" Monopoly

This system rewards accounts that have already established a large following at the direct expense of the smaller accounts that actually produce the content. It transforms reblogging from a method of sharing into a method of acquisition.

When a reblog functions as its own independent post with its own note count, the incentive to click through to the original source disappears. The platform is transitioning from a collaborative ecosystem into a standard social media feed where the person who posts the content last—not the person who made it—reaps the rewards.

Impact on Collaborative Conversations

Tumblr’s unique culture is built on the reblog chain: a chronological, evolving conversation. By allowing users to like or reblog "any part" of the chain as an independent entity, the platform is breaking the narrative thread.

If engagement is siloed into specific branches, the incentive to add to a conversation is replaced by an incentive to simply own a piece of the engagement. This change doesn't encourage conversation. It encourages the commodification of individual posts within a chain, making it harder for the original voice to ever be heard over the noise of the rebloggers.

The Disincentive to Create

Perhaps the most damaging aspect of this update is the psychological toll on the creative community. When the platform actively diverts credit and engagement away from the source, it destroys the motivation to share original work at all.

For many, the reward for posting is seeing how far their work travels. If that travel is now invisible or attributed to others, the labor of creating becomes thankless.

This system makes creators want to share nothing. If the platform is built to harvest a creator's effort for the benefit of curator blogs, the logical response is to stop providing the raw material. I am one leaning into this category. Without us creators, the curator blogs have nothing to curate.

By making it harder to protect and track one's own work, the platform is effectively telling creators that their presence is secondary to the conversations happening around their work: conversations they may no longer even be able to find.

[lowpolyanimals]

link to staff post talking about these changes (and a response from them)

[amesliu]

actually so pissed off about the new tumblr update are you fkin kidding me with this rn why does every site hate creators

[amesliu]

taking the concept of girl dad sohae percy and shaking it around like a dog with a toy

[sohaenet]

chapter 31 @strungoutheart

[amesliu]

i still think about this tag

[amesliu]

hi !!! i just reread sohae and caught up on book 2 and its sooo good. ur art is so expressive and beautiful and i love love love your characterizations of everyone!!! amazing work my liege i'm a huge fan 💞

many thanks my loyal subject ❤️❤️

[amesliu]

it’s nice that ppl still reread sohae. love you 😘

[amesliu]

happy valentine’s day i’m thinking about sohae percy sending flowers just cause in contrast to luke sending flowers pretty much exclusively when he fucked up