Hello everyone,
We've had a few asks in the ask box recently asking where we've been, and why we haven't been posting.
First of all, thank you for caring enough to reach out! It means a lot that we were important enough for you to go out of your way to inquire about our whereabouts and lack of activity.
Furthermore: Thank you to everyone who has supported the blog in our absence. For all the likes and reblogs. It really does mean a lot to know you enjoy the art we share here.
So now for the elephant in the room.
Why haven't we been posting?
TLDR: It was a very complex combination of IRL things and, unfortunately, quite a lot of hate sent our way for having this rare pair.
However! We do intend on returning to posting eventually, as we also have quite a lot of supporters that we care about very dearly that mean a lot more to us than hate comments ever could.
Extended version below the cut for those interested.
As mentioned, what (temporarily) drove us away was a combination of things.
Between a new job for one of us, mental health issues that we will not go into, and, as of recent, a D&D campaign that we are extremely invested in, drawing Pokemon stuff just didn't really fit into the schedule anymore.
However, I will not deny that a large reason for our distancing has been the consistent hate we've been getting for running this blog.
When we made this blog the decision was made not to respond to any of the hate asks we got.
There was no reason to - it would just sully the mood, and almost every hate comment was on anon anyway, so it wasn't even like we would be spreading awareness for the bad apples in the community. We chose to spread only the positive and simply privately remove the negative ones so as to keep our blog free of as much negativity as we could.
But we did, in fact, receive a lot of hate comments.
A lot of them were funny to the point where we did not at all feel slighted by them, but others were completely ridiculous. We have received genuine death threats over posting a Pokemon ship.
I, the one writing this, am the primary individual in charge of the social side of this blog. My partner in crime makes the art, and I post it here on this blog to share with people, alongside doing all the other fun things that Tumblr people do like managing the ask box, responding to comments, etc.
I've been on the internet for a very long time and have seen my fair share of hate comments. I am not bothered by it in the sense that it does not impact my mental health significantly.
But that does not take away from the fact that it was tedious at best, and genuinely upsetting at worst.
For the most part these asks involved heavily shaming the rarepair we make art of here, insisting that "canon ships" existed for these characters (Though I also feel the need to mention that many fans of said ships have also been very supportive of this blog, and thus I want to make sure that I am not shaming everybody involved in that much more positive side of the community. To those who supported us, or simply left us be despite your personal tastes, thank you.), or implying that we deserved significant physical harm for posting about these characters being romantically involved.
This amount of hate is, sadly, an extremely common issue that rare pair shippers face. I know of many blogs that, within just the short lifespan of this blog, have gone belly-side up because the amount of anonymous hate that would be thrown their way.
When you post online, receiving hate is inevitable. There will always be those select few that find the need to share their opinions on everything without considering how it may make others feel.
We expected this going in.
And yet, it was still saddening to see the support greatly drowned out by hate comment after hate comment after hate comment.
We don't share this to garner sympathy, but rather to spread awareness that this is an issue that many other people face too.
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So what does this mean for us? Will we return to posting?
Despite everything I have listed above, the chances are that, yes, we will eventually return to posting when circumstances allow.
As much as the hate is frustrating and upsetting, this blog has also received more support than I ever expected it to get.
The fanfiction, though extremely slow going, is still in progress. We do intend on releasing that one still.
I do expect that our posting will be more sporadic than before. Life has a way of... Well... Getting in the way.
But yes, posting will continue.
Thank you for taking the time to read this, and, of course, thank you for your support and your care.
We love you all!
((Of note: we have included several tags we do not normally use for our OOC posts to spread awareness about these issues further. This will not continue in the future and was done exclusively for this post.))
Do you have any plans to make written content for these boys? :3
OOC// Hiya! Yes, there's definitely plans for written works! I'm regrettably not much of a writer myself, but a large scale fanfiction is slowly being written.
Shorter stories may also eventually be released. Kind of depends on how busy I am, I suppose.
Thank you for your question!
OOC// Thank you all so much for 100 (+!) followers!
Your support is infinitely appreciated and we cannot thank you enough for the kind words, likes, and reblogs we have received in our short time here on Tumblr.
We hope you all continue to enjoy the content we release, and know there is much more to come!
OOC// This image unfortunately exported just a wee bit blurry onto tumblr... Hope it won't be too noticeable in post! If anyone knows a fix, please let me know.
This was also inspired by another pre-existing design, but I forgot to save it. If anyone knows the OG artist, please let me know so I can credit them for the inspo!
This was definitely a longer process than most of the images we post on this blog, so I hope everyone enjoys! Perhaps one day we'll make it into actual merch if anyone is interested.
so fun fact . I used to rp colress on twt , and was actually shipped w/ a maxie acc at one point - didn't rlly know other ppl shipped this and we actually called it icyhotshipping bc we didn't know that ship title was already taken LOL
also love ur art :D
OOC// Oh that's very interesting! We ran into a few shipnames drifting around for Colress x Maxie while we set up this blog! The sheer number of them is likely on account of the ship not being super popular (yet😉).
While we were naming our blog, it was kind of between Holisticshipping and Feralscienceshipping, as we saw some posts of both.
We ended up going for the latter for our blog name because it sounded sillier and because it fit the story of our AU a bit more. They are, in fact, rather feral scientists after all.
Originally we tagged with both of those ship names, but I confess it started slipping our minds a few posts in... Perhaps I should revive the habit.
Icyhot was actually one we had seen, I believe though Deviantart at the time! So it's very cool to see someone who may have been involved in that very niche group calling it Icyhot. Small world haha.
Thank you for your ask and the nice words! It's much appreciated! ❤
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