goodbye cohost

[doodlemancy]

(this is a crosspost of the original post on my cohost blog from september 12th, 2024.)

i had always meant to draw @kyn's perfect creation, intern secretary eggbug, and for various reasons (hand pain, slippery brain, etc.) i just never got around to it until now, so... here's that. (the other character is Petra). i'm not sure i've ever drawn anything with quite this mix of, uh, sincere grief and tongue-in-cheek absurdity. art is communication, okay? and what i'm communicating here is: i am so sad and also i watch so much anime.

in a terrible way, i'm glad that i'm this sad. ditching previous internet homes-- deviantart and twitter, to name two of them-- was a little sad, but mostly a relief. and there's something to be said for finality, i guess. i won't have to see it shambling around all rotten and gross and zombified, like the other places i've left behind. seeing cohost come to an end also hurts, but i'm glad it'll be a happy memory, instead of one tainted with resentment.

cohost was the first place people really took an interest in my original stuff. i had a few followers on other sites who consistently showed up for my OC-posting, but for the most part, it went unnoticed in other places in comparison to my fan work, and... you know. that's predictable, that's just how it is. and there's a lot of stuff people say about posting your creative work online, about not worrying about numbers, or popularity, or whether anyone else likes it at all. some of it's fine advice. i don't share absolutely everything i make. but i make most things with the intention that they be seen, and there's a certain amount of desperation in that, with passion projects. i was used to posting original stuff and mostly getting silence from the crowd. i was also wrestling with this painful shyness about my writing (which i think i pretty soundly broke myself of this year lol). i was a little stunned the first few times i posted some sketches of Iron Company characters here and people like... responded! and wanted to know more! it meant a lot. it really did.

i'm grateful. and i'm not sure i would have made Potion Stand Story and then gotten started on Iron Company properly this year if i hadn't been here, specifically, on the Fourth Website. i may well have just continued languishing in my hesitance.

thank you, sincerely, to everyone who stumbled across my stuff in the infinite ocean of the internet and gave it a chance, even though there's so much else vying for your time and attention. we all only have time for so much, and i'm glad that we all spent some of that time together. i'll try my best to pay forward the gifts that cohost gave me.
 

Comments

Wow!

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> i had always meant to draw kyn's perfect creation, intern secretary eggbug, and for various reasons (hand pain, slippery brain, etc.) i just never got around to it until now, so... here's that. (the other character is Petra). i'm not sure i've ever drawn anything with quite this mix of, uh, sincere grief and tongue-in-cheek absurdity. art is communication, okay? and what i'm communicating here is: i am so sad and also i watch so much anime.<<

These pictures are so heartbreaking. You really pulled in a lot of symbolism, like the palette, falling leaves, and spirit-sparkles.

Anime just makes for beautiful art. I have totally watched some of it specifically for the art. Heck, I started so far back that it was often passed around without translation, so it was all art to us.

>> in a terrible way, i'm glad that i'm this sad. ditching previous internet homes-- deviantart and twitter, to name two of them-- was a little sad, but mostly a relief. and there's something to be said for finality, i guess. i won't have to see it shambling around all rotten and gross and zombified, like the other places i've left behind. seeing cohost come to an end also hurts, but i'm glad it'll be a happy memory, instead of one tainted with resentment.<<

That makes total sense. Also, I'm really happy to see a new wave of folks coming into Dreamwidth, bringing new ideas like "Let's actually do a good job of tagging things so people can find them." :D I expect that other places Cohost refugees are going, like Pillowfort, will also appreciate the influx.

>>cohost was the first place people really took an interest in my original stuff. i had a few followers on other sites who consistently showed up for my OC-posting, but for the most part, it went unnoticed in other places in comparison to my fan work<<

It's funny how different audiences can be across platforms. AO3 readers barely care about poetry, but Dreamwidth readers are all over that.

I hope you can build a good audience here too. Art is pretty popular on Dreamwidth, there are a bunch of communities for it. I'm seeing a bunch of new artist coming over from Cohost and want to encourage that.

Might you be willing to repost this, or at least the art, over on newcomers? We have an entry on Mourning for Cohost, but more folks would probably see it if you made a separate post. You could post it and then comment with a link under the mourning post.