The subject/title is a bit random and perhaps only tangentially related; that rant will come shortly

I'm gonna be honest, uploading and tagging at least somewhat effectively and relevant to uploaded image scared us from here for maybe too long? It's not that difficult though, and you can always go back to smooth over any little mistakes or update... It was just a lot to take in and try I guess. Now there's one hell of a backlog and I've found myself weighing some options.

I want to post Other's (wonderful) refsheet, and some associated pieces to Scraps, but a lot of them are just SO BIG. Like 26mb. Painstakingly detailed. They'll lose quality and you'll miss some of it, but you'll still see it; see who made it, maybe go give her a look; some awareness will be spread.

We had watched dingdongs paying $8/month for a site actively getting excreted out of an asshole billionaire's orifice, then front row tickets to attempts at flushing it down a figurative faux-gold-plated throne, by comparison this is a much nicer place. It has, and has had its flaws, by all means; but it has improved. The months since the former owner's passing have shown some of it, hell the reason he owned it was pretty solid reasoning from what I recall (keeping it out of corporate hands, or something). In short this place is probably something we should start contributing to lol.

One reason for the sudden interest and activity here was the loss of meaning; as well as a "side quest", if you will, related to that. The internet has been hitting enshittification goals for about as long as profit-before-lives types have been slavishly demanding Line Go Up.

It's exponentially worsened over about the past year, with techbro hyperfixation upon generative "artificial intelligence" (read: plagiarism uncanny valley program whose smile does not reach its eyes) leading to unhelpful help guru copypastes algorithm'd over first results in many search engines and honestly, a further disconnect from things I want to see. This is to say nothing of its image generation escapades, the culmination and ultimate contribution of "artists' work as content to be commercialized and profited from in a corporate sense".

Video sharing sites are full of minute-or-less trendchaser brainrot moments made by people desperate to be that content carpet, to be stepped on, soiled, and thrown out instead of truly seen and heard. Nostalgia bait is rampant, some good, surely, but plenty done simply to throw spaghetti at a wall and see what sells.

Meaning, for us, feels like it's gradually being replaced with an ingenuine, machine-approximation of meaning which tries to hit all the sweet notes which define it; yet is ultimately hollow and devoid of that which it sought to replace. Meaning loses meaning in a desperate bid to make a quick buck off that which remains unsold.

Our side quest for the present and the future is to seek meaning. True meaning. Genuine people with genuine work, maybe not always made with genuine love but at least with genuine interest in their craft. Real recognizes real. Your yum can be my yuck and I may have no interest in it; but I will respect it and you if it's earnest. If it's your meaning.

I come here in an attempt to show and share something of meaning with folks in varying states of acquaintance; I come here to see their meaning as well. Ideas made manifest as image or text, commissions paid for an artist's effort to turn ideas into a piece of reality, a piece of reality we all share enjoyment in. Real interaction, real engagement, furry that's simply unmarketable to a corporate demographic but has all the meaning in the world to you or I.

I want that locally run hobby shop and hardware store vibe, not big box store vibe. Let's find and keep and cherish the joy of meaning together.