(sorry if you've answered something similar before)
with all the positive encouragement you post about it, I'm really considering making a clangen blog. since you have a few, is there anything you recommend before starting? a certain aspect of planning or anything you wished you would've decided on sooner?
Don't apologize, I'm happy to answer! In fact, I'm surprised people are even asking me, I'm just some guy. This is my second comic to even have traction (my first was a Steven Universe one lol)
BUT I shall answer below, and even provide my own personal Clangen Template that I made to track things- for anyone to use!
Firstly: if you want to do it, just do it! You don't have to commit to it forever, or even long, unless you really want to practice your professional ability to push through art slumps/lack of motivation. Especially in the clangen space, it's not taboo to just close/abandon a run you're no longer into.
Now, for more specific answers I guess...
What I recommend:
Keep notes starting from moon 0 if you have any inkling you want to make a blog. This means you may have runs you write several moons of before deciding it's not interesting/connecting/etc that are now useless, but it's better to have those and delete them than to not and have to backtrack ideas.
Pick a main character, or a couple, and stick with them. Trying to focus on all the cats quickly becomes an impossible task, and people won't connect as well as with a rotating cast as they will with a few set characters.
If the main character(s) dies, pick another to take over that role and slowly introduce them into the spotlight well before the other's death. Helps people swap over lol
Actually set up a world for the clan. Where is it set? What're the seasons like? How do they live? How are they different from the other clans, if there are any? It helps you with setting up practices, what characters value, and people like learning about it!
Keep posts focused on the blog. You can post about other things now and then, like life and other projects, but people follow you for a clangen blog in the end and may drift away if you post other things too often. I'd also say avoid venting, personal issues, etc as it can make folks uncomfortable and the blog isn't a diary.
UNDERSTAND YOU MAY GET PUSHBACK/CRITICISM/HATE. This is especially true if you handle sensitive subject matter like abuse, sa, transphobia & gender related issues, etc. If you want to limit this, you will need to turn off anon asks. I also suggest not even replying to them, as attention just brings more messages. It can suck, but blocking and moving on is key <3
What I wish I had done:
Kept the main character design simpler. I love Root, and I can handle drawing her again and again, but if I could have gone back I would have made her design/markings more simple. Find other ways to make cats look different than complex pelts, like weight and fur styles. You'll see me take this into account with later designs.
Cared less about interaction. For a lot of my starting posts, I was watching the number of notes very often and really tied my enjoyment of my comic to that. Truth is, some stuff works and others don't, and now that I am less concerned about that I find it easier to work on it.
Interacted with other blogs more from the start. I didn't realize just how much getting a comment or ask or reblog made me feel seen and happy- and while it's not everything it's nice. So I started doing that for other blogs, and it has led to me making some lovely friends.
Set up a solid genre. I started my blog heavy on horror but did not carry that into later moons because, well, it didn't fit. However that still impacts expectations to new readers- and has left me finding ways to weave it into the story as things go. So if I could have, I would have kept to a genre for the story from the start, but I'm still happy with where I'm at.
AND THAT'S WHAT I HAVE!!! I'm not expert and I have no say on what you want to do, so these are just my personal tips.
Now for the thing some people might be interested in... my personal Clangen Template! Here are previews of it empty and filled!
(Yes those are early notes of Hymnclan)
If you want to use it for yourself, HERE YOU GO! Please please please credit me if you do just by @ ing this account in your pinned or smthn, I worked hard on it! Just go to file -> make a copy.
I think the thing that is the most disturbing to me about Obsession is just how quickly it becomes totally clear that Bear not only never loved Nikki, but that he never even liked her.
In the little time we spend with Nikki before she becomes possessed “freaky” Nikki, Obsession goes to great lengths to establish Nikki as a person.
In just the first 15 minutes of the film, we learn that Nikki loves writing, she’s laid back, and that she cares very deeply for others. We see that she’s funny, she likes to gently tease her friends and joke around. She has ambition and wants to pursue her writing seriously. She has her own goals and thoughts and opinions.
She’s also characterized very well by her wardrobe, how she talks, her body language and expressions (courtesy of Inde Navarrette’s absolutely STUNNING and brilliant performance).
In a VERY short amount of time, the audience is given a VERY clear picture of Nikki’s personality and usual behavior.
Which makes her “transition” into “Freaky” Nikki all the more horrific when Bear makes his wish.
Because even if we give Bear some grace, and acknowledge that he couldn’t have known that the One Wish Willow would do what it did, and even if we treat his kissing her on the first night she comes over as morally grey (although in my opinion he absolutely did take advantage of the fragile mental state he believed her to be in), there is no way to excuse Bear blatantly ignoring that Nikki changes so drastically from the person Bear claims to be in love with.
After the wish, Nikki starts speaking differently and using a higher pitched voice, she starts dressing completely differently and wearing more traditionally “feminine” clothing. She suddenly drops her plan to quit working at the music store and pursue writing, she stops showing any care towards her other friends and the people in her life. She defers to Bear in every situation, with the only exception being any time Bear shows any sign of moving away from her emotionally (or physically).
After the wish, Nikki becomes a completely different person.
And Bear does not care or show any concern regarding this at all.
Everything that makes Nikki who she is, everything that makes Nikki, Nikki, is just gone after Bear uses the One Wish Willow.
And Bear couldn’t be happier.
We get a whole montage of Bear and “Nikki” as a “happy couple” hanging out together and ignoring everyone around them.
It’s not until Bear starts seeing actual consequences to his wish, such as “Nikki” causing a scene on their date or feeding his dead cat to him, that he begins to worry about her behavior.
And even then—EVEN THEN!!!!—Bear STILL adamantly refuses to accept that Nikki is not behaving rationally or how she used to in any way. While he eventually acquiesces to canceling his wish, he first tries to just “alter” it to make it so Nikki still loves him, but is just less intense.
He would rather use “Nikki” to satisfy his own desires and ego.
If Bear loved Nikki, hell, if he even just LIKED her for who she is, he would be horrified by “freaky” Nikki. He would have recognized and acknowledge extremely early on in their relationship, that something was deeply wrong. He would know that the woman he was with was not Nikki.
But Bear would rather have a bootleg version of Nikki that he can feel validated by, than have an actual relationship of any kind with the real Nikki.
He does not love Nikki. He does not even like her.
He likes the idea of Nikki. He likes the image of Nikki that he’s constructed of her, the image of her that only exists in his head.
He likes the fantasy of what Nikki would provide to him emotionally and physically.
From the beginning of the film, Obsession shows us exactly who its villain is. Nothing that “Freaky” Nikki does horrifies me as much as Bear’s treatment of Nikki and his refusal to see her as an actual person with autonomy.
For me that’s the most disturbing element of Obsession. That the people you trust the most and care about may be so obsessed with the version of you they’ve created in their mind that they’ll actively ignore your personhood and autonomy.
God. Obsession is so fucking good. I love film. I love cinema. Thank you Inde Navarrette. Thank you Curry Barker. Film of the year, if god hates horror fans why do we keep winning.
i cannot stress enough that this film would NEVER have happened the way it did if Bear were not the person he is.
If he were even remotely compassionate towards Nikki as a person, even WITH the way he views her like a trophy to achieve, he would've done the right thing a LONG time beforehand. There were so many solutions to that whole film, but none of which physically COULD have happened, simply because of who Bear fundamentally is as a person - He's a coward. He's selfish. And he's genuinely so lacking in compassion and empathy that he will do anything to serve himself, including robbing Nikki of her autonomy, personality, and uniqueness, for the sake of basically controlling her like a dog.
I love seeing how much people love Obsession, and how some people are willing to turn it into an AU for the fandom they're already in, but I genuinely need people to understand the kind of person you have to be to be in Bear's position and do what he did.
And with all that in mind, the ABSOLUTE UTMOST respect and love goes to Michael Johnston and Inde Navarrette for their incredible performances in this film. A lot of people show so much love to Inde for her performance, and it is WELL EARNED. I just also believe we should show a lot of love to Michael Johnston for playing a character like Bear so well that we saw every single instance of his character on display whenever we saw Bear's reactions, decision-making, etc. Michael Johnston killed this role 💛
As I work on Artfight refs, I figured I should post a few as I go along. So, this is Vervain, my Beastmaster Ranger! They're a unicorn – Or, used to be a unicorn, technically.
A few weeks ago, a small but higher-than-normal number of accounts were mistakenly suspended. The suspensions were quickly reversed, but our response wasn't good enough, and we want to say more.
We're sorry it took us this long to address this. Trust and safety issues are difficult to discuss publicly, and we can’t share details about specific individuals or how our systems work without exposing Tumblr to bad actors. But caution led us to say too little, too late.
We’ve heard from members of the trans community on Tumblr that they were disproportionately impacted, and that deserves a direct response. According to 3rd party researchers, Tumblr’s userbase has the highest proportion of LGBTQIA+ folks on social media, so it makes sense that when something goes wrong, those communities might feel that disproportionate impact.
One thing we want to emphasize is that we do not moderate people's identities. We moderate behavior. We know that identity shows up across a Tumblr profile in many ways, from followed topics to the flags people put in their bios, and more. However, these signals play no role in how our moderation systems make decisions. We monitor those systems for evidence of bias and take corrective action when we find it.
We understand that the communications sent to affected users, and our broader silence to the community, didn't meet the standard people expect from us. That feedback is fair, and we apologize. We've updated the messaging sent to people impacted by these incidents. We are also overhauling our process with a goal of responding to mistaken suspension appeals within 24 hours, and have instituted an ongoing internal review of how suspensions and appeals are handled.
Going forward, we're committed to finding a better balance: being more transparent with our community about issues that matter, even when we can't share everything.
Tumblr belongs to everyone. We take that seriously, and we intend to earn back your trust. We are not afraid to have tough discussions with you or make updates based on your feedback, though on occasion, it might take some time.
To the people whose accounts were affected, and to the members of our trans community who felt targeted: we are truly sorry.
You banned two hundred accounts within the space of five minutes, most of which are still banned, virtually all of whom are transfems, all because they happened to follow one singular blog (which was also run by a transfem). You're filthy fucking liars, you're virulent transmisogynists, and your CEO fucking doxxed a trans woman for daring to speak out on your policies, going so far as to chase her to other sites to continue harassing her. This apology is fucking pathetic and everyone hates you because you're lying pieces of shit. If you were sorry you would change, but instead at every juncture you double down and then whimper about it when you're called out. I hope you get hit with another class action suit because the only way you idiots seem to ever learn is by getting your fucking asses beat in a court of fucking law.
i feel like people aren't getting how dire ai is. we are running out of drinkable water. our brains aren't engaging as much with what we see and hear. people near data centers don't get clean water and experience electricity blackouts. it's being used to make pornography of underaged people and women. it often just lies. it affirms everything. it lies. it has made people kill themselves. it lies for gods sake. and people act as if im dramatic for being staunchly against it. 'now i KNOOW you hate ai and whatever, but look at this cute video' this isn't me being a new age puritan about internet videos, this is about the fucking earth and our future living on this planet. people are suffering now, people will suffer more, and my friends and parents will roll their eyes and think im annoying for despising ai so explicitly. we need to wake up because we cannot live like this
fake feminists and transphobes will tell trans men "you have male privilege; of course you cant see it, because youre a man and thats what male privilege is." as a way to gaslight (pardon the overused term but its literally what theyre doing) you into doubting your own lived experience
bc yes, cis men can be blind to the male privilege they experience, because its the only thing they've ever experienced. if you live your whole life being listened to instead of spoken over, if you were always given good opportunities instead of being ignored, if you were never disrespected and harassed for your gender because you are considered the norm, of course you would think thats just how it is for everyone.
trans men dont experience that. any lick of male privilege we experience is acutely felt and noticed, because we have been women. i notice when I pass as a cis man and another man treats me with dignity and respect, cos that didnt use to happen to me as a woman. and I notice just as often when someone clocks me and treats me like they did before I transitioned, with the same dismissive and condescending attitude.
of course im aware of any male privilege i recieve, because im not used to it. i dont take it for granted. and conversely, im keenly aware of every aspect of male privilege that cis men recieve, and that i dont. equal medical care, full body autonomy, unalienable voting and homeowning rights, equal opportunities for jobs and income for living an entire life with a male name and a male body. not to mention the male privilege I have (mostly relating to one-off interactions with strangers, not anyone that has access to my records) is entirely dependent on how well I pass and how well I can pretend to be a cis man
telling me that im just wrong about all that and that ive suddenly become blind to all the privilege and boons that have been thrust upon me after transitioning as if I haven't been here this whole time balancing every change in my life and how people treat me, is demeaning, insulting, transphobic. im not an idiot who cant examine the scope of his own life.
blakekathryn
tangentwithtanner
ellievsbear
andulkaphoto
pixelskylines
stormborns
germansingergirl
origamiaround
kaledo-art
