A lone light lost deep within the darkness. Aqua holds tight to the two truths she must find: a way to find her freedom, and a way to find her friends. Blog is primarily a post-DDD blog, but I will dabble elsewhere if you'd like, just ask! Current...
This would be by far my most ambitious and outlandish project to date. The planning alone took waaaaay longer than I'd like admit. It's also part of the reason why I took a break from doing cross stitch for a while. Not because I was burnt out or anything, but because this project was done for another Zine, the "Garden of Shadows" zine that left me so disheartened and frustrated from how things went about. It sort of killed my love of the craft for a bit.
You can see it in the photos, I didn't stitch this onto dark colored fabric. Every single inch of it was hand stitched. Be it the figures in the center or the entire fucking night sky behind them. I'm not even exaggerating when I say I worked on this multiple hours a day, every day, for nearly TEN MONTHS. I even have a photo of it next to the previous gummiship project to show a difference in size and complication. The gummiship was done on an 8 or 10 inch hoop. The Garden of Shadows piece had to be done on a massive quilting hoop as to hold it all in place while I worked. It had well over 20 thousand stitches!
Ironically, Namine was the figure that gave me the most trouble. I had to rip out the stitches and redo her at least twice.
The project was a hug turning point in how I planned out my projects and gave me a better idea of how to get the idea in my head down to thread.
Hey here’s something I did a while back for the 20th anniversary. Forgot to fill in the keyblade completely but hey, who cares? Not like it’s good enough
I really wish fan zines would be more willing to let newer people get a foot in the door.
It’s hard to get back into it when you’ve been scammed and had your work stolen but still have the drive to want to try but don’t have massive number of clicks or views.
If you don't already know you have issues doing so, squat down real quick. Bend your knees all the way and touch the floor. Just make sure you can do it. Okay? For me? And then stand up all the way and make sure you can balance on one foot.
Like. You don't need to blow it into some huge thing. Just. Make sure all your bits and peices still work the way you think they do.
Can you turn your head to look behind you without twisting your shoulders? What about standing on your toes? If you sit down on the floor can you get back up without using your hands?
If there was ever a tumblr post worth sending to your mom, it's this one.
Just saying, bodies are a use it or lose it kinda thing.
okay so every time I see this post crop back up in queues and notifications I end up thinking about it. Because I made the post and even I'm still doing the thing where I read the post about maintaining range of motion in my delicate meatsuit and I nod and hmm and think yeah that's a good idea and then dont move from where I'm curled up shrimp style staring at the nightmare rectangle.
So like. Thinking real hard about moving doesn't count as moving. Major bummer. Anyways. Joints.
What game would you erase from your memory just to experience it for the first time again?
Feed your dashboard by answering my question, blogger.
Probably the first Hades game. It was frustrating at first before I realized failing was *essential* to learning so much. I looked forward to pushing further AND what would change at the home base.
Fluxer is an open-source, independent instant messaging and VoIP platform. Built for friends, groups, and communities.
After hours of research, weighing options and the pros and cons of multiple alternatives to Discord I believe I have settled on Swedish-based Fluxer.
It's UI is based off of Discord, and operates in the same way giving server owners familiar moderating tools and ability to assign permissions for their individual servers and users. Servers allow for custom emojis and stickers so the experience should be familiar and mostly seamless.
Their community guidelines also mirror Discord where the only content that is banned is real-life violence, real life gore, hate speech, CSAM and depictions of sexual acts of minors (even fictional) among other universal prohibited topics (terrorism, harassment etc).
NSFW/adult content is also allowed which many other Discord options actively prohibited, preventing me personally from being able to fully use their services without breaking their guidelines.
So sex and violence is allowed.
Fluxer's stance on AI
Fluxer will not use your content to train AI and thus far it does not appear to have any plans to partner with AI or use AI in any features.
Fluxer's Monitoring/Content Screening
Fluxer has been the only messaging service I have found to be this transparent about how their screening works out of the gate, typically I have found you need to email someone to get this information, or they have to be forced to show it.
Basically your images are scanned for CSAM and that is it, it is not retained or collected so they are not hoarding your information.
This is also something many other services already do whether you realize it or not.
Fluxer on Age Verification
Fluxer is not asking for anyone's ID or facial scans to prove their age, and because this is a Swedish based company, unless laws there change, it is unlikely they will require this. You confirm your age at signup as a faith-based system.
They even have their own version of Nitro called Plutonium.
There is no wait to sign up as of yet.
Nothing is perfect, what are the cons?
It is a baby app, meaning it is brand new and thus some accessibility features MAY be missing some people require to fully participate. Because it is so new, these features may come later following feedback. Note: I do not know what features may be missing as I do not use any accessibility features other than changing the theme to dark mode, and making the font bigger, which Fluxer allows.
IT HAS NO MOBILE APP YET THEY ARE IN PROCESS OF CREATING ONE. It is very likely one will launch very shortly, but for now it is on desktop.
Final Thoughts
I trust this service more than I do other options at the current present by how transparent they have been and their almost immediate communication when I asked them for clarification on violent content. I was confused if they banned fictional violent content and they responded back to my email within 2 hours informing me they were going to update the guidelines to be more clear that fictional violence was acceptable.
Note: originally posted on 2/16/2026 - we will never find perfect but I think this is a better option than others I have seen. If anyone has anything they wish to add that I may have missed, please do.
