Stop improving your craft for other people.

I checked out the comments of the T-Pain x Diesel collab [soundcloud.com/monstercat/t-pain-dj-diesel-san-holo ] and expected to see some people giving their opinions on it, mainly from Shaq rapping, but then I saw this comment and...

I seen so many people shit on Shaq's rapping so I wanna share my opinion. I love his part. I really like it, normally I feel mild about Shaq's rapping but I think he improved a bunch and this time it sounded good and even great at times. Let him improve guys, he's a new artist so please CAN WE BE MODEST ABOUT OUR RATING. but I feel ya'll tho, I'm just saying you gotta give credit where it's due I DON'T SEE MANY ARTISTS RAP ON DUBSTEP EITHER SO PLEASE CAN WE BE A BIT MORE MINDFUL?

...outside of this song, I don't think I've ever agreed with a comment more than I've agreed with this one.

Obviously, artists--no matter the genre--won't be as good as everyone expects when making music, and I believe that's normal. In fact, there are times where artists are going to suck at times (me included). And in this onset, people would point it out that either the song they made is bad or they are bad at making music.

While I think constructive criticism is vital, some of these comments aren't really practicing any kind of constructive criticism whatsoever. People may have the sort of mindset that makes them act like every mainstream artist "knows what's wrong in a song they've made" and that's rather a very self-centered toxic mindset you could have, because...no, you don't know what's wrong with the song, and they don't know that either. Even if you did, you'd have to tell them this as well so that they can get an idea on what to actually improve instead of assuming that "they know" only because they have an audience bigger than yours and they've been doing a lot of music than you have.

People who make these remarks on artists, who allegedly "make bad music" expect improvement out of them, but don't even allow them to improve once. They listen to one track from an allegedly "bad" artist, and just like that, their music is bad.

Improvement is always the thing that's demanded from the audience, but is intentionally gatekept from the artist because the audience always raise the bar for literally every artist that exists, preventing them from even improving just to satisfy the audience rather than themselves.

As a very obscure creator even 98% of my own audience doesn't acknowledge the existence of, I'm very much glad that I'm not a mainstream creator, because I very much don't want "fans" who demand everything I make to be good to them so that they'll feel good about themselves burning me out.

Losing Touch with Posting Art on Bluesky 

Ever since I've been posting random shit on this platform the moment I joined, I've actually gotten engagement on them from my mutuals, especially for the art that I'd share in them. 

The issue

Bluesky was just like how Threads and Cara both are where you post anything and you'd at least get 5-16% of engagement. So for art, even if some people who follow me don't like the art I post, I'd still get engagement from the other few. Nothing about pigeonholing existed. And the thing about this was that before FCL_C0MPLEX was ever a thing, my art was very convoluted and complex, which I know that people would appreciate busy eye-darting art than to appreciate coherent art. 

I didn't have an issue with posting art here in Bluesky because of that, but throughout time, my mutuals just progressivy stopped acknowledging my existence on here, regardless of the post. I went from 0 folllwers to a decent 100(?), getting engagement from mutuals who actually care about what I post, but as soon as I've gotten enough followers, those mutuals just kinda decided to pull the plug and only engage with my posts if they're tagged in them...or just not even at all. In the context of sharing my art this also proves to me that sharing art that looks very convoluted and maximalist will never have any engagement that would match it, compared to art that looks decently ordered and minimalist that would actually fit this no-engagement kind of space that I now have.

Why a personal website is better than social media

This is essentially part of the reason why I think the indie web movement, no matter the web hostong service, is better for posting art in a personal website than on social media platforms, specifically Bluesky, because for me, Bluesky became much like how DeviantArt, YouTube, and Tumblr were to the point where you have to focus on grinding with posts to get a new set of mutuals who will "for sure" engage with your art-related posts by reposting and sharing your posts to their audience, only for them to also become "mutuals" who never will engage with your posts.

Engagement and pigeonholing on other platforms

DeviantArt 

I left DeviantArt for Cara because I was being pigeonholed into engagement on my fictional firearm art and not on anything but, but at least I still got engagement even from non-mutuals compared to Bluesky.

Cara

On Cara, I started with absolutely fuckall while posting random stuff there, and—just like with Audius—I somehow now have 23 followers, some of who are actually engaging with both my art and my posts. And most of these followers aren't even mutuals either. 

I don't think this required a grind, but apparently Bluesky became a platform I have to grind on even for just random-ass shit that I'd post if it's not art. With a personal website like the current FCL website that I have (which I want to port to Framer), there's no grind, as it matches this quiet-kid vibe my profile gives off.

Learn to let things go instead of dragging them.

Addition to ( am sick and tired of my Former friends and others trying to get my current friends to hate me for my past. I have been trying to improve as a person and moving forward with my life.

But people in my past are trying to cause unnecessary mess towards me and my current friends. By digging up stuff that is in the past or irrelevant other things. Because I feel like I might be a threat or something else.

Instead of like talking to me about it Privately like a grown adults they decided to be like High school teens who are mean girls and Tell this to others about me instead. This annoys me because y'all would love to withhold evidence to the public if they are worried about me being a threat to anyone.

I think I know why y'all do this. Because you know this will cause people to question the evidence or they think your doing this for revenge which is petty as fuck and makes y'all worse then ever. This is why most victims of anyone don't come forward about what happened to them because y'all don't care about the victims but want someone to hate because you don't like that person.

Also it annoys me when people are stalking me and trying to find out what I'm doing when you should mind your own business and something with your life instead worrying about me. I just want to be left alone and work on my Upcoming Webcomic and other things. 

I read this post from RainbowDoggieUnicorn, and I honestly agree. 

Of the amount of times I mention serious (but not too serious) topics or talk about them in a serious manner, most of them seem to involve someone suddenly making it a back-and-forth discussion where it goes nowhere and doesn't seem to end until one party agrees with the other.

In that onset, I would respectfully call for an end to the discussion before it turns into an argument, but it seems that there's always the last word that people who are chronically online are required to get out instead of also ending the discussion. Like, there's absolutely no reason for someone to tell me to "move on" from a discussion but then--when I actually do move on or want to move on--make snarky last-word responses like such:

"ah yes, the argumentor who wants to move past it the moment differing points of view start sounding convincing"

"sure, though that nick change tells me someone isn't moving on"

It doesn't even advise the former party to move on and end the discussion, but rather shows the latter party that they are encouraging an argument to be made rather than also moving on themselves.

For those wondering whether or not me (Focal Flare) and FCL_C0MPLEX are the same person...but continued...

Other post: skill I learned on this trip was to block out the noise. Everyone has something to say about how you should live your life and push your career, but sometimes the best ideas and exploration of self comes when nobody is around. I used this opportunity to write this track whenever I was alone on this trip and discover the importance of isolation.

[Paper Skies - Louder Than Noise (Ft. flowanastasia): listened to this track from Paper Skies' and never really thought much about it, but looking at the description, I saw this paragraph of text, and I think that...

// "

in terms of art, this is extremely accurate to me 💯

Even before my rebrand to "Focal Flare", I was considered by my mom as shy, and way before "FCL_C0MPLEX" was a thing, she, as well as another person from my university, referred to me as "quiet".

I don't really know about shy because I express myself differently from others, but I agree with the quiet part as I'm not very talkative and I'll only talk whenever I'm summoned for anything.

The main reason for FCL_C0MPLEX to come to an existence is to provide a contradictory juxtaposition for the complex art that I tend to make, and this alternate alias would be a home for all of the not-so-complex minimalistic/simplistic art that I woud also make.

However, me being the "quiet kid" screams much louder than the already loud convoluted noise around me, and I think FCL_C0MPLEX fits this louder-than-loud vibe very well. Since I'm a quiet artist, people don't really acknowledge my existence whenever I make or share art (mostly on social media), so if the complexity of the art won't match any interaction that it'll get on social media, there's not really a point in being as loud as the complexity with complex art, so I wanted my art to match this.

" //

No, I don't have DID.

So a situation happened in a producer friend (call them KA)'s Discord server which surrounds me using Discord plural bots. It did end, but not necessarily in a great way.

Out of nowhere, I was DM'd by my other producer friend SpockAndStep about me using Discord plural bots like Tupperbox and PluralKit, followed by a screenshot that I posted in KA's server, asking if I had DID (dissociative identity disorder) (or OSDD (other specified dissociative disorder)). 

I responded back with otherwise, but admittedly rather in a defensive way, which wasn't mentioned either by her or anyone in KA's server. The only two reasons for this that I can come to are the following:

1. The initial message was sent to me at around 9:00a CT and I had only woke up and saw them at around 3:00p CT, so I was in confusion from just only waking up.

2. Being naive, I was especially more confused because I've been, without actually having DID, using Tupperbox and PluralKit for years in servers that have it, and I haven't had a word from anyone else who saw me using it, but all of a sudden it's now a concern.

Originally, her bringing up derogatory slurs in KA's server (which put people off and make them very uncomfortable) should've only been about slurs, but I somehow took it upon myself to mention that Tupperbox shouldn't be in the server for the assumption that most people in the server (those with DID included) don't use it. While I don't actually think it should be removed from the server, I also don't think it should be of a concern if someone without DID is using it or not, so long that they're not using it out of pure malice.

To be honest, I feel bad for S&S as it seems like this entire situation in the server and the slurs situation combined forced her to leave the server because it looked like, to me, that she was being made fun of. While I appreciate KA for conversing with her in the server about it, I think it could've been handled in a much more passive way. Me saying that she was "fearmomgering" was really not called for at all as it only proves that I was being defensive, hence her calling it "fucking stupid" (and I honestly agree with that). It's just the result of me being on Twitter for years straight, and I've sadly been accustomed to bossy people making bossy tweets, and even then, one small step in the wrong direction and a mutual on a social media platform might just cut me off forever and cancel me over something I never knew about.

Just like KA, I'm not downplaying DID/OSDD or anyone with it (nor do I want to downplay it), as the disorder is no joke (if I had or did not have ADHD, I wouldn't joke about that shit either), so I still respect S&S for giving me a reminder. 

It should be mentioned, however, that while they're made with individuals with DID in mind, plural bots like Tupperbox and PluralKit were also made for other things, such as roleplays and memes. It may be different per the developer(s) of these bots, but they don't gatekeep what passive things you can do with them from anyone, and neither should anyone using them gatekeep either. For me, I don't use them because I have DID or OSDD (which I don't have either of), but rather because I just simply can't be bothered to tell 100 people for the 100th time to disable ping replies when they reply to any of my messages.

So if you see me using Tupperbox and PluralKit to proxy my messages as Flaremon (my mascot for Focal Flare and FCL_C0MPLEX), or even posts and comments/replies prepended with "//", then this is why. I'm not doing it to mock, poke fun at, or downplay people who have DID. Sometimes it's for in-context roleplays, but most times it's for preventing the amount of times I get pinged for a message.

All the best to SpockAndStep, hoping for good things to come your way.

Something from Art Fight that isn't either as competitive as the main events or limited to spring prompts

(This is not as ranty as my other posts on Notepin, but this is something I wanted to get off of my chest.)

Not gonna lie, Art Fight should have something like Sprout Fight, but it rather:

- lasts throughout an entire year than lasting throughout just spring, so anyone can join in even on the first day and the last day of the year, and it wouldn't necessarily be called "Spring" Fight.

- doesn't have a specific theme or prompt to follow (in the form of a word we have to depict or a color palette we have to use its colors from in any way), so it wouldn't necessarily be another "[insert season here] Fight". However, the artist can choose these prompts for themselves.

- is less competitive than the main Art Fight events, so people don't have to feel like they're under immense pressure to push art out in hopes that it looks good, leaving to many burnouts. Thus, people don't have to worry about winning or losing with there not being a scoring system, so they can rather just focus on making art than rushing it.

- is less restricted to a certain medium of art, which is character art of any form (drawing, 3D model, Minecraft skin, etc.). Art Fight is an art trade-based game, but it's also a character-based game, so it's to be expected. However, you feel like you have to sacrifice the usual mediums you make art of to be able to participate in Art Fight. Spectating on the team you joined may be an option, but I doubt anyone who's into competition likes spectators.

-

This comes from a person who hardly ever makes character-related art of any form, as all of my art is usually everything but. 

I would also be interested in taking part in Art Fight, but I feel like my creativity for making art really shows when it's not limited to a certain medium of art I have to sacrifice other mediums for. 

I'm also an artist who's about making art at my own pace because I believe that good art is never rushed, and I feel like taking part in Art Fight goes completely against this idea of making art at my own pace and never rushing it, because I'm under the pressure of not only the entire competition, but also other artists: both on the opposing team and my team. It's like being in Hell's Kitchen where you are a chef serving foods but under the immense pressure of the entire competition. And the worst part about this is that I would be very much aware of being under an unbearable amount of pressure and rushing art.

Minecraft building "community" and their BS "rules"

👋🏾 Long time no see, apparently Notepin was freaking the fuck out, so I wasn't able to post or view anything (let alone log into my account), as was the same for everyone else. The developer (who also made Strawpage) didn't have anything other than Twitter for me to mention this to them about it, but I didn't want to use Twitter, so I had to wait it out. 

But I'm back now 👁️👁️

-

There was this short from Gerg that I watched where they talked about "block vomit" and yapped out a nothing burger about how it looks "terrible" in builds. While I can understand where they're coming from, it sounds very much they're being an entitled elitist. 

In another short from someone ( they responded to this short with this main point: beauty in minimalism and complexity.

In the comments of that short, I said this:

// I'm all for minimalism over maximalism and even his classification for what's "blOcK VOMit" is weird as hell. Like...do you want something that looks too bland to be "minimalistic", or do you want something that's forced to be very messy just for your own pleasure?

For all the time I've been building in Minecraft and to creating art, a lot of the things I've made have been very complex and probably ambitious, expressing beauty in the most maximalist way possible. Ever since I've initiated "FCL_C0MPLEX", I've been meaning to completely go the opposite direction by building and creating art that's not over the top in the most minimalist way possible.

Just like how people hate maximalism because it looks "complicated and messy" as fuck, the same people hate minimalism because it looks "bland and boring" as fuck. Being an artist who is now focusing on minimalism, there's absolutely nothing wrong with either minimalism or maximalism—and a viewer is allowed to have preferences on these. It just comes down to knowing how to make them actually work. And even if I'm all for minimalism over maximalism, I don't believe that everything needs to be bland to be minimalistic, which—in my honest opinion—that just implies it being very bland rather than it being minimalistic, so calling something you don't like being ambitious "block vomit" just means that you hate it not looking "bland and boring" to you.

This also comes to the point where, apparently, the freedom of Minecraft just seems to slip off of everyone's minds at this point. Minecraft's a sandbox game where you can do absolutely anything in it without following an objective. And if there's "truly" an objective, then only you are the person to set that, not anyone else. 

This applies to building as well. People may say that the sky is the limit, but that's false, as the only limit that exists is the one your own imagination sets of you. This limit will only expand with your imagination. But even given this limit of oneself, there is still freedom in building things that you want to build...was still freedom, that is.

"Was" because collectively, the Minecraft building cult has gone insane as shit to the point where there are now "rules" to building, such as the BS'd "block vomit" rule. There are multiple building tutorial videos on how to "become a better builder", which seem to follow these "rules". 

Really, there shouldn't be any rules to building...at all. The only thing they do is devalue the freedom of building in Minecraft. If anything but, they are just being thrown at is so that we can violate them anyways, and that's obviously to be expected when you have rules in a block-building sandbox game. You wanna make the most simplest thing? Go for it. Should it be the size of your mother and also look very complex as fuck? No-one's stopping you, not even the internet.

There was also this one video from LuvstarKei that I watched ( and they were talking about how intentionally building the most ugliest builds possible is better than trying to build like a pro. For me, I used to build like shit, even when first got into playing Minecraft from playing Cubelands (RIP) and Manic Digger, and that's normal because everyone starts out building like shit as well; and eventually you get better over time. 

However, because my building style had changed and improved between 1.12.2 and 1.18.2, I think it's impossible for me to try and intentionally make bad builds, because they're suddenly going to look good. I remember my typography instructor telling us in his class that it's hard to make a composition that's very chaotic and unordered, because you can try and make a very terrible composition that's very messy, but it will somehow still end up looking ordered. 

That's how I like to see making bad builds: I can do whatever I can to make a build actually bad, but somehow it turns into something good. But even so, even if what you try to make, destined to be intentionally shit, turns out to be good instead, I still agree with their point that they mentioned in their video: people chasing after perfection to make builds as great-looking as possible.

Look, Stam1o (another YouTube) has some of the most insane builds (no joke, he made a wholeass fucking mega base in the Just Create SMP) known to date, and I'm always astonished by his ambition for building. However, I don't try to aim for being a master builder myself that the media aims for. I just build whatever I want to build, however good or bad I want to build it. 

And any "rules" that follow are the rules I set for myself. The limits from those rules are up to my imagination to handle, so the "block vomit" trend is very much cringe as hell.

"Why don't you take anything seriously for once?"

Simple. I can't. That's why.

No, actually. I'm not even fucking kidding, that's literally the reason. I'm simply not allowed to be serious if I wanted to or must be serious with something. 

Someone from a partnered Discord server—mind you, full of people who are mostly goofy and like to steer off one topic to multiple different topics—accused me of not taking anything seriously (which is false if we're talking about intentions), and I responded with these:

In servers like this, it's hard to even take anything seriously or try to say anything serious without someone going "tf is this dude on about" or some shit, so...damned if I don't take anything seriously and damned if I do.

I hate how it works like that, but that's sadly the Discord side of the internet. 🤷🏾‍♂️

And to be honest, that's not even a Discord-exclusive issue of the internet. It's rather something as a whole. 

Like literally, I'll say the corniest horseshit one time to play along with the rest of everyone just fucking around and obviously get shit on for it as if I was "intentionally not taking anything seriously", but any time I actually try to take anything seriously or be serious about anything, I also get shit on for it as if I "misunderstood the joke (that never was obvious for a naïve person like myself)". 

You can't really goofy on the interenet, but at the same time, you are just simply not allowed to be serious either nowadays because you're going to be made fun of or questioned heavily in the wrong way for it. Essentially, damned if you take anything seriously and damned if you don't. There just isn't no gray area for "locked the fuck in" and "fucking around", unless you count being deadass silent as an in-between.

Really, what the fuck happened to the internet, y'all? I've been welcomed already, but what happened to not holding someone on a high pedestal for this?

(This is also a staple of Reddit where if you take anything seriously, you get downvoted to hell, but you also get downvoted to hell anyways when you finally let up the seriousness.)

You are never being 'dramatic' when you vent.

I'm not a psychologist or a therapist, but when it comes to venting about things that are on your mind which make you feel certain emotions, remember that venting about things is just as normal as the emotions you feel. I vent about things a lot, and that's normal. IRL or on the internet, I vent more than I rant.

But venting about things is not you being "dramatic" and shouldn't be compared to being dramatic. The difference between venting and being dramatic is that venting is just something natural that you do in response to the things that really irk you out, and being dramatic is simply a choice. The sad thing that makes venting a "choice" is not doing it, which is true. People don't vent (even in detail) because they think they'll be seen as being dramatic. 

But the truth is that it's not dramatic whatsoever. Just like how you shouldn't contain your negative emotions such as sadness within yourself, you shouldn't sugarcoat how you're really feeling. There's no such thing as naturally being "dramatic" when you vent about something.

Vent about the passing of your pet? That's not being dramatic. Vent about being kicked out of the house you live in from a family altercation? There's no "drama" in venting about that. Vent about how your school or job has treated you like shit? Where would being dramatic even play into that? 

Regardless of what you vent about, you're not being dramatic to any sane person whatsoever. However, not to have the silence-is-violence type of belief, but if you're not being open about the things that you should vent about, then that's just going to translate into the things being perfectly fine and that they don't bother you to an extent.

So when you vent about something, remember that you aren't being dramatic. You're just being open about it, and that's all that matters.

Managing a Discord server is a hard challenge

You look at the title of this post (or it in its URL) and go "Is this based on...?" or "This is related to ..., right?", or the like.

If you have any sort of rhetorical questions like those, the answer that I can provide is yes. Of all things, managing a Discoed server that you own is a challenge. However, it's not just any challenge. It's one HELL of a challenge. I'm not really a stranger to managing a Discord server and it being a challenge, because apart from moderating people who are causing a disruption, I find it to be an allure. 

I own two Discord servers: one that started as a public shitpost server as "Flare's Memes" which later became "Monster Vibe Realm" and then "Voidstate of Venaphase" transitioning to a community server, and another which is a selective-access version of that for my friends. The beauty of it being a challenge that server management is allows me to find and improvise ways to make a Discord server better; not to make it a big server, but to potentially make it a bit more active than it is which inevitably will lead to more members. 

But sadly, there are a lot of gripes to managing a server. Not only do you have to constantly moderate it the more people there are and the less staff you have, but when it comes to just even a selective-access friend server like mine, there's still a beef duality involved. This duality is where one time all of your friends in the server are chilling in harmony, not causing a ruckus, but another time, one of your friends end up leaving the server because of another friend being in the server as well. As someone who's seen this happen with two people in both servers I own because of two other people, this would've been solved of both parties from each server actually talked things out to solve these differences, but sadly their beef (which I really hate to call it beef but I don't really know what word would match this sort of dislike between two people) will persist because they refuse to do so. With that, trying to manage a friend server in this regard isn't entirely impossible, but it's impossible if it means friends leaving because of friends.