Ophi's December Newsletter

Or peace and love on planet twitch

Read to the end for someone reloading

Maker’s Raid Train & Online Community

Since I started posting art online, I’ve very consciously tried to focus on collaboration instead of competition. I think many people, myself included, naturally lean towards seeing another person doing ‘your’ thing as rival rather than a friend. I was very guilty of this as a teen, so hopefully as an adult I can better recognize and avoid this attitude. But man if I didn’t screw up so bad back then, I think I’d be much worse off now.

Many online spaces suffer from a culture of adversarial groups, and none nearly as much as Twitch. Platforms like Instagram and YouTube have a lot of creators in the same space vying for attention, but potential supporters don’t really need to pick a favourite. You can like two YouTubers who do the same thing, that’s actually pretty normal and cool. But streaming is a limited amount of live and intractable time - most people can only watch one person for an extended period, and that creates a lot of antagonism among creators. Gaming twitch my beloathed.

This whole rant might be a little weird if you’re familiar with my streaming category “Makers and Crafting,” because the streamer culture there is very supportive. But I want to highlight that this is a very conscious decision thanks to a lot of great community members, and could change for the worse if unappreciated. Just last month, some creators organized a huge ‘raid train’ including around 100 streamers in the category, and I loved the effort and initiative. I dunno - just try to make friends where you can, rivalries are for sports and anime. We a forcibly holding hands now.

December’s Art

Some highlights of my art throughout 2024

A coin purse for a charity giveaway back in October (I am slow)

2024 Zelda Timelapse

With 2024 over, here is all the work done on the Zelda Tapestry. I got strangely emotional while editing the video, I had a great time on the journey this year.

Giving Tuesday - MSF

My birthday fell on the same week as Giving Tuesday this year, a big event in which people are encouraged to fund raise and donate to charity. I’m a big fan of Doctors without Borders, so we spent a couple days doodling insane things and went way over our initial fundraising goal. Thank you so much everyone for your donations, and I take no responsibility for any of these doodles.

Way overshooting the goal!

These are all requests by donors don’t @ me

Thanks for reading to the end! PS: Here’s someone reloading