Ooe Zine “Theatre of Death” has been released!

DCAF Dublin

Personal Stuff!

I’ve pretty much just been locked in the past while prepping for Black Friday and shipping out my orders in good time so people get them for Christmas, but I’m excited to get back to drawing during my xmas break when I visit my parents!! I’m really hoping to finish my VN in the new year, hopefully before going to Singapore for Doujima.

Also on a kind of negative note? I wrote in some of my previous posts about some harassment/ire I’ve been getting from people in the artist alley scene, but I haven’t been able to be too specific about stuff, but I can talk about this a little bit now. But before going to MCM, I was sent a screenshot of someone posting me and my girlfriend’s artwork on Lolcow. They were specifically obsessed with my gf, and kept posting her work. I had a suspicion of who it was from their typing style alone but, the more I dug into it, the more sure I was. Investigating the thread, they had been posting us for a few months - since July I think? And while the focus was on us, it wasn’t just me and my gf! It was a lot of my other artist friends from Ireland, plus some of my EU friends.

I’ve gotten some ire from people in the scene over the past few years but I think this was one of the nastiest, most parasocial things that’s happened so far. It’d be one thing if they were just mocking my work, but dragging in all my friends, and being transphobic on top of it all about one artist - it was disgusting.

I was able to figure out who it was very easily, thankfully, but honestly I do feel a bit on edge from it all. You just never know how someone else perceives you, or how much they think about you and occupy their brain. Someone was sitting there stewing in their negative emotions about my gf and myself for so long while we were none the wiser and hardly knew them. And this isn’t the first time someone has done this - not the lolcow stuff, but just stewing in negative emotions like this while I don't even know who they are.

Idk it just sucks that people think we're just free game to publicly shittalk because they think we have a “high” follower count (neither of us have a high follow count) or are “popular” or whatever. I really don't care if someone doesn't like me and is shittalking in their private friend group discord or whatever. Everyone gossips and bitches a little, you don't have to like everyone. But posting it on places like instagram stories and lolcow, fishing for people to join in on bullying with you… like i'm not a public figure or celebrity, I don't draw and post my work or my life so people can pick it apart like this.

It's a bit difficult to find a balance between posting my work and my life. I want to share when I'm happy and having fun, show my love and passion for my interests, and show that I am a person behind the art I post. I keep my DMs closed and am private about a lot of things, but I don't want my art profile to be strictly “business”.

This is also not the first time I've been accused of getting into a convention due to “favouritism” or some form of unfairness. I recently posted about being accepted to Akumakon - A very small but well loved college run convention - because I was super happy about it! But again behind my back myself and friends have been accused of getting in due to “favouritism”. For a convention of which I know none of the staff, and is college run with a changing committee each year. Is it so hard to believe that I got accepted because I work hard to make new things every year?? That I got accepted because I put so much time and effort into my artwork?? I got rejected for this convention every single year between 2018-2022. Which was fair enough, because my work wasn't very good back then, and the spaces at this event are very very limited. But during those years I worked and improved!

Also on that note. If I somehow was magically pulling the strings behind this event, I wouldn't have rejected so many of my amazing talented friends, who I am absolutely gutted will not be there!!

Idk. I dunno why some people act like I'm some huge artist taking away spaces from poor beginners and applying to every single con when 1) I am not a big artist and I am Broke 2) I don't even do many Irish cons - I don't do Kaizoku, DCC, Amikon, Okamikon, Irish Gaming Market, Gamerfest, NI comic con, or Anthro Irish, and I only do DCAF once per year.

I’m not really upset over exactly what has been said about me or my friends' work. If anything, the funniest part about all this was the fact this person posted us on Lolcow, desperate for other people to join in on their bullying, but was met with either no response, or people telling them they're “vendetta posting” and instead complimenting my friend's art. Like you couldn't even get some of the nastiest communities online to join in, it's pretty funny. It just creeps me out that people have their eyes on me like this. Lurking on my page despite not following me and screenshotting stuff, taking anything I say or do and complaining about it on socials or to other people, disrespecting me and my gf's boundaries, sharing our work in a hostile environment like lolcow.

We were all pretty lucky the people on Lolcow didn't really give a shit and instead insulted the poster. But, I keep thinking, what if it didn't end up that way? What if the community on there latched onto us and kept posting us and we became a figure like RCdart to them? It's scary because art is me and my gf's livelihood. It's how I pay rent and feed my cat.

I already take a lot of percautions - I have seperate locked accounts for posting my personal life and friends, I have message requests turned off on every single app so I can't get DMs from strangers, I don't accept discord friend requests or allow messages from people I am not friends with. But I think I'm going to take a break from

I'll probably delete this part of this post later, I just wanted to talk about it a bit now that I finally can, even vaguely. I don't think the person even knows about my neocities page so they probably won't read this, but you never know, so I won't keep it up long.

At the end of the day, I'm so happy to have the friends that I do have. So many really amazing and talented people reached out to me when they saw what was posted and it really touched me. I don't like to complain too much publicly or post my Ls but it's always nice to know that people have my back.

I was pretty lonely growing up so I feel really lucky to have so many people in my life now I can call friends. I can go to pretty much any city or country and have someone to hit up to hang out with, I have so many talented peers I look up to and am lucky to call friends. I was always weird and awkward and very autistic, undiagnosed with no idea what was wrong with me, so I thought I'd just be a bit of an outcast forever. I'm lucky I have the support and friends I have so stuff like this doesn't get me down and I don't keep thinking about it. But well. I hope it doesn't happen again, especially since so many of my friends were dragged into their stupid lolcow posting.

Anyways !!!! MORE IMPORTANTLY!!!

Geek Days, Lille

During summer, we had our lovely friend Cley visiting us for Qcon! I wrote a bit about Qcon in my summer recap! This month, Cley was super kind to host me and my gf for a con called Geek Days in Lille, France!

I had such a great time. Cley was an amazing host. ♡ We watched horror movies, did karaoke, saw FNAF 2, and I got to eat moules frîtes and crêpes. I LOVE VISITING FRANCE !!! We also went to Disneyland! I'm obsessed with rollercoasters so I was in my element. I would ride rollercoasters again and again and again on days where there were no queues.

con was super nice too! I always love doing French conventions because people there read a lot of manga and visual novels. Back when no one in my own country knew what Golden Kamuy or Dorohedoro even were, French customers always had my back. I also love how many people in France are into VNs. I ALWAYS MEET SO MANY UMINEKO FANS!!! I even met an Ooe fan at Geek Days! One of my favourite countries to table in 🫶 Thank you french people for having good taste!!!!

I got to pick up Cley's new book, a magazine about their OCs in the style of a magazine like Kerrang! I read it on the plane home and it really has me inspired to get back to work on my OC projects <3

What's next?

Right now I'm finishing up all my orders, commissions, and busywork before heading home for Christmas. I'm really hoping to get a good chunk of work done for my visual novel when I visit home. I really hope I can release it in 2026 because I have a lot of other projects I wanna do next!!! Also ugh I'm just excited (and also so nervous) to share Mairéad and Sariel's story with everyone!

Anyways!! Signing off with a song, and some sketches from this month, since I haven't got a lot of art to post. Hope everyone has a good Christmas!!!!!