Cactus Codex

It always has stuck me as weird when people request a rather specific kind of etiquette on following a blog.

There’s the small stuff, like “don’t reblog read-mores.” That makes sense if you tend to put extremely private stuff behind a read-more. Which is a weird thing in itself because it’s kinda redundant to have extremely private stuff posted to a public space where anyone can see.

Then there’s the big stuff, like “don’t follow me if you ______.”

I never understood this. Sure, you have an opinion that varies from person to person. But what exactly does declaring certain people with certain opinions as undesirables really accomplish? You don’t see their stuff on your dash, so there’s no issue with triggering content. Also, you really can’t tell if someone has a dissenting opinion from yours unless they have publicly declared it.

Let’s say there’s someone that has made it clear that people who hate dogs are unwelcome to follow their rather cool blog. Let’s stay that I hate dogs with a burning passion, but never actually revealed it publicly. I can follow, and none would be the wiser. Unless I suddenly feel guilty for my opinion. But more likely, I would just probably just scoff and continue following. Especially if the blog has nothing to do with dogs in the first place!

Also, that non-dog blog is not gonna become associated with dog haters just because I follow it. Seriously! What kind of logic is that?

So this rule is unenforceable! You can do thorough inspections of your followers’ blogs, but anyone with a brain can realize that that is stupid. You have to rely on an honor system which, according to previous encounters on the website called Tumblr, almost never works!

I can bet $100 that some die-hard dog hater is just gonna get all pissy and harass that blog out of spite. WHY YOU CRUSHING FREE SPEECH???? HAHAHA FUCK YOU I HATE DOGS AND I’M FOLLOWING 4EVER!!!

Come on. You know this will happen. And it won’t help anyone.

So why do it?

What’s the benefit of attempting to restrict people from following a blog set in public online space.

sketch-modblog:

Are you curious to what I’ve been up to?

Well, I typically keep my private life off the internet but circumstances have come to a point where I need to ask for help and that’s not fair without sharing a bit more about myself.
I know you see these a lot if you follow blogs around the tumblrverse on the regular so if you’re disinterested in more of these you can move on and I hope you don’t unfollow due to my posting.

As you know, I attended Bronycon recently and had a rather successful weekend. I managed to break even at my first con despite hearing constantly that I shouldn’t keep my hopes high. Sales weren’t particularly plentiful, but it was enough since I live close to Baltimore. At this time I barely made it to con by the skin of my teeth and emptying my wallet to do so. It was fortunate that I broke even or I’d be in even worse trouble now.

That said, roughly an hour after I got home I was evicted.

No, it wasn’t due to money. It was because an angry neighbor had no problem reporting “overcrowding” in my household to the county. Unfortunately, we had one too many renters and I was the most recent edition. To protect my friend’s family from eviction and the other two renters, I left the house without question within the same day. Due to some unique circumstances, I can’t live with family any longer so my only option left is friends or the street.

I’m stupid and prideful so of course I choose IHOP for their 24 hour policy and endless coffee while I figure out what to do.

Thankfully, my friend who I lived with, was angered at the decision his family made and how it was executed and stayed with me since. Right now his girlfriend is allowing me to stay at her apartment.

This bring me back to the present, my plans, and where I intend to be in the future.
I’ve done a good job so far at not asking for help. As most of you noticed that’s reflected pretty clearly in my sparratic updates. It’s been a rough several years now and I’ve handled myself barely so far but it’s finally come to a point where I literally have nothing left to fall back on and I need help.
My current plan of action is to move to a location where;
A: Jobs relevant to my expertise are more plentiful.
B: Cost of living and upkeep is cheaper.
C: Is condusive to starting a business.
The state that currently has ample amounts of the above is Washington state. I have friends there that can help me get started and the state is home to several game development studios and Amazon. The cost of living is roughly half of where I live right now, Northern Virginia. Lastly, it’s an excellent location for starting a new business.

The issue now is getting there. I’ll manage regardless because I’m set on doing this and I’m beyond changing my mind however in order to not barely live and move in 6 months, a year, or god knows how long, I’m asking for your help to get me there. Anything helps.

This September I’ll be running weekly drives and likely digitally publish my own art pack in order to give something back to all of you. The art pack will be released at “Pay what you want” with a minimum of free. I don’t want anyone to feel cheated with this.
For those that really want to help, I’m opening a Patreon as I post this. You can find more information on what I want to accomplish there. My goals are lofty but, now more than ever, I am determined to see my true goal to fruition.
http://www.patreon.com/GraphicLee

If you stuck with me this long, thank you for genuinely hearing me out, or being a fast reader.

If you normally just skip to the end;

tl;dr____Yes, I’m working on the stock backgrounds that I’ll be using throughout the following NT story arc. A complicated ordeal since I’m not accustomed to architecture or perspective. After that Sketch will see updates. Sometime in the near future I wish to open two more side blogs for funsies as well. They’ll be lower in quality I think but good nonetheless. 
Please reblog this for my sake.

It’s worth noting that I’m throwing my trust to the masses and keeping anything and everything on Patreon 100% open. Since it’s crowdfunded support, as far as I’m concerned the content should be freely available

Mod of askninjatwilight requires some help. Signal boost!

(Source: thenewmetropolitan, via chibi95)

fisherpon:

As some of you may already know, I (Fisherpon) have been invited to sit on TJ (Pirate Dash)’s Tumblrpon panel at this year’s Bronycon! This will provide an unparalleled opportunity for me to meet many of my online friends (including several of the artists involved in this donation drive), but also to work together with some of Tumblrpon’s finest to give out tips and tricks on how to run a successful Tumblrpon drawblog.

The problem is, the convention is on the other side of the continent! So much so in fact, that it’ll cost me about $500 to get there and back. This, combined with the cost of accommodation and food, brings the total price of the trip up to about $1200.

I’ve been working hard, as you may have seen from my photography shop ads, but to not much success. I did get some money for my birthday, but I’m still about $900 off of my goal. Thankfully, that’s when one of my artist friends suggested that I start up a donation drive to help me get there!

So, I went off to ask my artist friends about it. I wasn’t expecting much; four, five, maybe six artists. But people kept saying yes, and being so generous and kind… we now have (at the time of posting) forty artists involved! That’s incredible! Frankly, I’m touched, and if I can make it to the convention I owe each of you a great Canadian bear hug.

This is how this drive is going to work.

Behind this link and this link are two spreadsheets. One of them lists everything that is being offered sorted by money, and the other lists everything sorted by which artist. That way, if you’re only interested in getting something from a particular artist, you can look there, but if you’re just interested in seeing what you can get with $20, you can look in the first list. The list that is sorted by artist also has examples of the kind of artwork for sale, so you can use that as a point of reference. To navigate the spreadsheets, you can either click on the links provided or use the screen navigator at the bottom.

When you go in there, you’ll see that most of the art isn’t put on a set price, but rather a range: Say, $2-5. In this situation, the more you donate, the better the type of that art that you’ll get. So, for example, you may get a refined sketch that even has B&W shading on it for $5 when you would simply get a rough sketch for $2.

Once you’ve decided what you want to buy, click on THIS LINKto reach the donation system.

WHEN YOU DONATE, YOU MUST MAKE SURE TO PUT SOME WAY I CAN CONTACT YOU IN THE BOX THAT SAYS ‘How can we contact you?’

Once I have received your donation, I will contact you via the information provided. Then, you can tell me what commission you want from who and I’ll pass the information on. Since the artists are donating their time and skill, it’s completely up to them if they want to accept your commission or not. I’m glad that they’re willing to help me out like this, but I don’t want to overwork them! For a similar reason, some artists won’t be able to start working on the commissions until late May.

If an artist rejects your commission for some reason (overworked, busy with schoolwork, etc.), you will be given the option of spending the credit at another artist or getting a refund. For this reason, I suggest making up a small list of artists in case the one you want most is unable to do what you want. You can simply give me that list, and if the first artist of your choosing is unable to do it, I can automatically move on to the second one!

This donation drive will last for two weeks, and will officially ‘end’ on the 18th of May. This link will lead to a page that I can update every day or so to show how far off I am from my goal.

If you have any questions about the drive, feel free to send me a message. Any major announcements regarding this will be posted in the ‘donation drive’ tag on my blog.

Hopefully we can pull this off, and I can see you guys at Bronycon!~

GET THIS MAN TO BRONYCON!

(I’m a part of the drive. Look under “Cactus” in artists for some decent art for a decent price.)

(Source: fishermod)

I was having tacos for dinner with the brother. Then he asked out of nowhere, “So where exactly are you going with Post Crusade?”

At this point, I’m not entirely sure of a general path which PC will take. But I decided to humor him, and talk about some bullshit ideas that came out of my head at that moment.

The result was this. (Contains PC lore, and some spoilers.)

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