I’m back! Web hosting, social media, my discord server & doing text blog updates!

Hey! I’ve decided to do text blog updates so that things are more timely and I’m not depending on bunching art, youtube video and lots of rambling together to make a blog post. It has gotten too big and time consuming to make each blog post again so I need to break things down and reign myself in :’)

I have to reign myself in or I’ll keep burning out a lot more…

Another ramble about social media and my empty discord server

I made a discord server since February because twitter has been horrible to use with the robot authentication/ID verification concerns, AI scraping by twitter and the pushy pop ups telling me I should subscribe – the number of terrible user experiences keep rising. But there isn’t much of an alternative to confidently jump to.

And they’re limiting links to just showing the featured image and they’re just suppressing anyone who isn’t subscribed to twitter…yep it keeps getting worse. I don’t know if not posting art there anymore makes a difference. Then again my engagement there has been dwindling for years and I don’t really check my twitter/instagram/social media feed for years due to my sensitive mental health. I really don’t know 🙁

I also tried posting to Threads now that the web/desktop version is out. I think people have left since only one kind follower was still around :’) I don’t know if I’ll keep using it – I get tumbleweeds (most people didn’t keep using Threads) and Meta are also doing AI scraping. At this point I’m just worn down by platforms so undoubtedly I feel a huge sense of dread with Threads. I don’t have a big engaged following at Instagram and LinkedIn but at least some people are still kindly sticking around there?

And then I hear about how Tumblr is trying to actually use an algorithm and changed their UI into twitter?? I was confused with navigation too! It’s getting worse? One or two kind peeps are engaged with me there :0

Aside from my own blog, I like Cohost much more than twitter, threads, instagram and tumblr personally ;P

Artstation hasn’t changed and has some disturbing, violating, illegal deep fake AI services being sold there (maybe they’re gone now)?? I’m just sad – not that I’ve ever gotten jobs from Artstation. Plus Patreon too which adds another reason why I don’t want to do exclusive content over there :/

It’s a lot of shouting to the void…unless you have the skill/charisma/social activity/luck/connections to build a big audience. I feel like there’s no safe place from AI scraping and/or problematic established platforms…

Once again due to my “fear of missing out” I kept considering sharing my empty discord server so many times but I keep chickening out. No one has expressed interest and there’s no substantial demand for it (except for 4 peeps on twitter & 1 peep on youtube when I mentioned it last week)!

I’ve seen some art discord servers die out because it’s a lot of work to manage lots of people (it’s day care as someone describes it). I feel like I don’t have much engaged people to warrant it, will make me dread discord altogether, it seems super time consuming and it will definitely hurt my sensitive, low morale :’)

I need to stick to my limits! Also I don’t like being always available and visibly online (stress & demand avoidance)! I’m not confident and I don’t think I can handle a full on community discord server. Is this self sabotage??

Whelp I gotta face my fear of hurt, abandonment and rejection I guess and keep things small. I’m sure most people aren’t jerks and I don’t have much people it seems. I need to get over my anxieties of sharing it since I keep nitpicking it eep!!

I guess I’ll link it here anyway and if it gets tumbleweeds also then I’ll just have to accept it as just an automated server for updates and feel gloomy about it a while ;P

Here’s my simple discord server; another way to get blog and video updates!

• another way to get updates that’s not a social media platform! (following my blog directly and/or youtube works too)
• I hope to share stuff I find on the internet & inspiring artists there!
• gaming discussions – spoiler threads & posts need to be tagged!
• I may add a patron/member/supporter only channel for rare, random, exclusive updates + suggestions channel?
• maybe we can chat about random things, (in our own time & pace) since social media is a void? Lurking is welcome too! Just note that I’m not super active – we all have our lives :0
• I don’t know if I’ll be able or if I even want to stream right now…but if I do stream, I’ll update at this discord first
  • other artists who keep streaming make it seem easy but the idea stresses me out with performance anxiety…
  • I know in the grand scheme of streaming, art isn’t too entertaining – it’s just chill
  • I’ll stick with no mic youtube streams or gaming streams when I feel up to it later this year or next year
  • perhaps games instead?? I don’t want the pressure to perform with my art all the time plus I actually want to play through my game backlog :’)
  • Otherwise I will not force myself to stream – it feels like I “should” do it but I really don’t want to right now
  • I don’t want to commit since I have too much to juggle and I don’t really want to stream what I’m doing – it adds to the stress!! I’m trying to destress and heal my body’s chronic pains as it is!! :’)

I’m not expecting an engaged community, given that I struggle to have that, don’t have a substantial engaged following and the energy/interest to keep it up (I can attempt and do my best within my boundaries?)

If the server gets tumbleweeds and I guess it is another dead server by an artist but I tried anyway! 🙁 It’ll just be an update server from now.

If it disappears (I don’t own it after all), I still have my blog newsletter, even though blogs are not where people discuss things ;P

Anyhoo, a mega, special thank you for sticking around here at my blog home and for reading ;D

Switched web hosts for my website!

So I moved away from a company that turned terrible to my current web hosting company and I was dreading it. I thought I was supposed to do the migration myself so I stressed out for a handful of days until it got sorted it out :<

My current web hosting company helped and handled the migration process super kindly despite the time zone difference! It was a smooth sailing process.

I’m glad as I thought I would have to lose my leonieyue.com site since I didn’t know that I should be on a shared web hosting package instead. I was lost when there’s all these different packages (they didn’t exist last time) and I don’t know all the latest technical things.

My old web hosting company’s price was 5 times the price of my last renewal!! It horrified me!! I didn’t realise how expensive things got and how slow my website was, been getting regular downtime due to old SSD storage infrastructure, even though the storage size was bigger with my old web hosting company. They don’t provide that much storage anymore (50GB) at my old prices too :’)

I learned how expensive web hosting and web domains have gotten – I was even wondering if I should even let this blog die out if I’m stingy and struggling for money…the costs/expenses are getting scary.

But I’m hanging on for now – this is my art and life journey after all! It nourishes me in an emotional way as a terminally/chronically online hermit :’)

I did have to delete huge gif images from my Mighty Games overview blog post and a few others since I have smaller cloud storage space at my current hosting plan ;P

I also learned how much of my website needs clean up with storage space, a lot of art that were duplicates and web themes I should have deleted long ago. I did back up my old site before I deleted stuff too :0

Aside from failing to save my blog drafts that one time, I’m so happy that writing blog posts don’t lag as much and freeze up anymore!! It does lag randomly but I am happy with my new web hosting service so far.

Using Glaze on art against AI scraping (like on Twitter, Threads/Instagram)

It’s officially part of the ToS/Privacy Policy of Twitter that all non private data will be scraped for their AI training for text and images.

I looked into this twitter user’s RGBwatermark tool at rgbwatermark.net and it’s super destructive with the art and overwhelming with options…so not for me. Apparently Mist is better than Glaze but it’s more hardware intensive.

I’m doing tests with the time consuming/intensive Glaze / twitter / intensity where high intensity glazing is too much for me :/

It feels like AI data scraping is happening everywhere on the internet, uploading low resolution art is not enough (it can be upscaled) so here I am, using Glaze for future work?? It gets crusty on my art though. I guess Mastodon and Cara are safe from scraping for now :’)

I’ve been flip flopping on whether I should continue to use twitter (for years haha). At the moment pretty much 2-7 kind people engage with 140-200 impressions. Instagram is somewhat better but similar in terms of stunted reach.

I just got my twitter archive at least! I don’t know if I should delete tweets since almost everything I’ve posted are not Glazed. I’m reluctant since it’s a lot of work (8-9 years of tweets!!) plus I am not bothered reposting my work again on twitter :S

I know that my stuff will be on their servers for 18 or so months after deletion anyway so either way it is too late to protect existing stuff from their AI training :’) I can’t be bothered right now…I have other things I’m stressing and juggling about.

The fear of missing out is real as much as I want to quit completely. After this I’ll take an indefinite break, stop posting my stuff on twitter (unless it’s work related) and just browse/interact if I ever do log in?? I don’t know :0

Other random personal updates

I was planning to do a bit of drawtober/inktober and get back to learning watercolour but it’s not happening because I need to learn something else that would be a hard, long journey in itself. Consequently it took a while to realise that and then I had to let go of unrealistic, ambitious plans and mourn a bit about my neglected art supplies. I don’t have the space to do traditional art and continue digital art anyway…

I’ll talk about what I’m learning when I do have something to show – I’m just stumbling about and shall roughly go through tutorials I stumbled across!

Ah Baldur’s Gate 3 came out and I just ended up watching a lot of Asterion romance progression and some story scenes. Saw some endings too :’)

Watched the Super Mario Bros Wonder direct and I’m keen to play it; they did so many creative things!

Also Gamescom announcements – some games I may watch someone else play but nothing I would want to play. I’m juggling things as it is and struggling to make time to start/play Pikmin 4!

Ahhhhhhh I haven’t started yet because I’ve neglected things due to playing and processing my experience with Zelda, spend too much time trying to learn about healing my body, stumbling on my plans, life things to figure out and trying to catch up! Ah stress :’)

Also as I attempt to treat my body better, here’s some videos most artists have habits that ruin their bodies and Standing Glute Exercises for Knee Pain – trying to strengthen my butt muscles! I suspect I injured my knee cartilage/got meniscus tears (medial and some other sides) so I’m attempting the slow way of healing, walking like a slow, hobbling robotic duck and doing seated workouts. I don’t have crutches 🙁

I’m also watching out for arm soreness that came back (all those carpal tunnel syndrome treatment exercises make it worse??), my jaw pain during stress, shoulder pain, my horrible anxiety and I need to look into how my upper back/rhomboid area/shoulder blades is popping often eep!

I have been suffering from my body imbalances and some chronic pain these years so I’ve been cram learning much more in the past weekend and a bit in the past weeks. Trying to hold on and cope this week. Only I can help myself if I’m self aware how I’m injuring myself :’)

Gah the monthly cramps are happening too with all these knee/other pains!! I need some rest 🙁

I don’t think I have the equipment/space to do all these things…I will see a new physiotherapist next week/soon to figure out my pains and get hands on help; the last time I went was 2018. It’s also the general anxiety of hoping you find a good professional to help you that’s not dismissive/condescending…

That’s all for today! This month is another busy month of juggling and hopefully healing so let’s keep doing our best managing the stress and pain! :’)

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