Ponybooru Collab Image - 2024 Edition

Responding to an obvious bait like this isn’t a good image for you. It was already a bit of a tense situation that had been discussed a bit and was settled now. The random anon troll trying to stir it up again should just be ignored… not agreed with.

Just so you know, at least from me, is that I know that we all were/are just simply volunteers in this project without any set expectations or responsibilities. While there were misunderstandings about certain things and design choices, I don’t fault you for leaving the situation as it was getting a little tense and stressful in some regards. For something volunteer related, you didn’t have any obligation to stay or to continue to provide anything more to the project. As such, given these occasional troll/bait comments from anons, you could consider simply unsubscribing from this thread so you don’t have to worry about it anymore. If you don’t, then just be mindful that stuff like this still might pop up from time to time. Outside of reporting it as spam/trolling, there’s not much to be done about it currently.

Anyway… just simply leave the trolls alone and try not to interact with them. You are only capable of losing time and patience and will never gain anything from them.

@runner2
I honestly don’t even care about the Anon posts, Anonymous user is being a troll, what’s new? :/

It’s the fact that Twiface keeps up this two-faced bullshittery of playing polite-and-understanding to me in private, then constantly posting in public as if I disavowed this entire site and ran off in a huff, never seeming to miss a single opportunity to call me a bitch with passive-aggressive snipes like a craven.

Sometimes he even tries concern-trolling in public and it’s quite frustrating that he expects me to keep polite to him when he won’t stop it no matter how many times I ask him to.

So that’s why the post at the bottom of the last page is the final word, if he’s going to keep acting like a bitch then I can’t stop him. But that’s going to be the last time I bother calling him out for it, beyond a simple one-two word response containing a link back to that post.

As for unsubscribing from this thread, I would but I do need to keep apprised of when the deadline is finally decided. My friends and I still intend to submit our ponies in a group vector to the collab event, as we have done every year before now.

Perhaps it’s just my situation or my age, but I tend to not let much of anything get to me. After all, it’s just meaningless words that don’t have any impact on me unless I give them a reason to impact me.

While your situation is most likely different, trying to take a hands-off approach to things might help you out. As in, just ignore it. If you are brought up in conversation either directly or indirectly, don’t feel the need to respond if you don’t actually need to. Interacting with negative stuff can usually impact a person negatively as a result and cause stresses that otherwise wouldn’t be there if you had simply ignored it to begin with. Interacting with it will give that stuff some substance in your mind and cause it to impact you more then simply letting it be. But, yes, if it is a problem that continues to be brought up and mentioned then you can always silently report when you feel it’s necessary and mods can deal with it.

Also just taking a break from the forums or the site in general might help as well. The content will still be here when you decide to return and you can also still peek at the discord chat to see if there’s any updates there as well. If it’s problematic to keep peeking around here, then try to limit yourself on it if possible.

BUT… all of this is just me rambling a bit and your situations and feelings on the matter might differ entirely from mine. Just do what you feel is best in your situation regardless.

Anyway… I still intend to throw the final thing together in the end for this project so take your time on that if you need to. Even if this runs into next year, I am still willing to do it. Still no idea on potential due dates but I would imagine we still have a little while yet.

@runner2
Like I said, it’s more the two-faced/mixed signals bullshit from Twiface specifically then anything else…it probably wouldn’t bother me so much if he didn’t occasionally talk to me on Discord privately, as though we were friends.

If he wishes to conduct himself with the craven duplicity of Derpibooru Staff, then I will treat him as I treat them. I am done playing nice with him.

As for the collab: the big custom Casino background with custom vector assets is most certainly out of the question now…but maybe I could still persuade N0KKUN to make a more modest background for us, Casino theme or non.

I’d suggest non, since the original concept I had behind the themed picture isn’t what this community really wants anyway. :/

You are still fully welcome to participate via getting a background or whatever you want of course. But you certainly don’t have to by any means. I will come up with something eventually if I have to though. Even if I have to fish around for some 3D stuff and make my own scene with those assets then somehow make it less visually 3D for this purpose. :)

As for the other stuff, just try not to worry about it. You are still free to do whatever you want to do and to make whatever choices you want to make. :D

I do want the themed picture, I think it could be fun.

@Deserter
As do I, but it will need to be a separate event. Most people (including the rest of the volunteer team) didn’t want the themed picture that I was asking for - including dress code, albeit a fairly generous one of “themed apparel”(ie; just show up wearing something that looks like what people in this situation might wear) and I didn’t want to fight about it. The collab is for the whole community, so I needed to respect their wishes when the majority said they didn’t want that obligation/restriction for their submissions.

So what I’m thinking is that next year, I’m going to organise a separate event: The Ponybooru Themed Group-Art (name pending)
That will be my full, uncompromised vision that I had planned for this “ambitious” collab, so everyone will know:

I’ll figure out in time how many entries that I’ll allow people to submit…if there’s a low turnout of people wanting to join in, I’ll probably say each participant can submit as many entries as they’re willing to make/commission for it.

As for the Annual Collab, I don’t know if the volunteer team even wants me anymore. But if they do I’ll see what contributions I can make, even if I just get us a custom made background each year…albeit it would be a more modest one then my original ambitious view, since I’ll be moving those more complex entries to this Themed Group-Art project in future.

I don’t mind having you on board for the event myself. It’s just during the initial planning, theme ideas, and voting that it was direly rushed for no reason and everyone got a bit thrown off and confused.

As I had mentioned with the initial theme choice was that I thought it was more for the background design and props that would be present rather than a mandatory style that everyone had to abide by. As most characters in the show don’t usually wear anything to begin with, suddenly having people required to make outfits was a bit off-putting for the artists. I wouldn’t have minded if it was a more relaxed idea as I had initially thought with characters not wearing anything being fine alongside ones that might be dressed up.

I think the main issue in that was it’s simply a lot of ask of some people who aren’t very good artists to begin with (such as myself) to suddenly need to design an outfit for their character to be allowed entry into the collab. That was where a lot of the friction came from. With the rushed nature of everything in the beginning it was not made clear at all that it was going to be mandatory until much later in the discussions after we finally threw out that silly early deadline. If it was mentioned earlier then that than I must have overlooked it in the initial rush of things.

Now doing that themed collab alongside the main general one is certainly fine I would imagine. The turnout might be less for it due to what I mentioned above but it still might be interesting. Realistically though… I’m probably not even going to have my own character in this collab to begin with as I simply am not a good artist and don’t trust myself to make my (somewhat complex) character decently enough via pencil/paper to submit. But I still wish the best for everyone able to join in though and I will still put it all together in the end. :)

You’re right. It was a horrible decision on my part and I wasn’t thinking about the possible consequences at all.

@FeatherTrap
I honestly didn’t mean any harm against you at all, but you probably won’t believe anything I tell you if that’s the reputation I’ve inadvertently cultivated.

In light of all of the trouble I’ve caused for this project, I think the best thing I can do is to resign, effective immediately. I keep acting without considering how it will affect others, and this is not a quality anyone needs in a leader, a friend, or even just as a community member.

I’m glad that people are talking about the project again after more than a month of dormancy, but I think I should recuse myself from any further activity with the collabs for the rest of the year. This might be perceived as an overreaction but I think my continued involvement is only hindering the project and causing drama and bad publicity. Maybe I’ll submit something next year, but I won’t attemot to organize anything unless someone specifically asks me to.

I should have resigned months ago, but I didn’t want runner2 to have to do it alone, and I feared that it might not get done at all unless I stepped in and threw something together the last minute. But at this point I really don’t think I should even be involved anymore.

darn

I don’t want to step on any toes here, but perhaps the whole theme idea was a bit too ambitious for this round?

It’s already October, only a couple months left of the year.

Maybe the theme idea should be pushed back for next year, with a more general collab substituted for this year’s project?

And then there would be a full year to iron out the wrinkles for a theme image to work, and a lot less stress.

@runner2
Well it looks like I’ll have to now, if the latest announcement from Twiface is anything to go on. I’ll have to take over doing the organising dates and collecting submissions unless he decides to return.

So…back on the team for me I guess? <:P

@Hericks
That’s basically the conclusion we arrived at in August. <:P

I had this very ambitious idea, I admit. Too ambitious within the time left remaining in the year for sure, and frankly it seems like many people didn’t want to abide the restrictions that my vision imposed on it.

The collab event is supposed to be for the whole booru, so I officially abandoned the idea of a theme to this collab. Of course I’ve been off the team so I don’t know if the rest of them have yet.

My proposed compromise is that I organise a separate event - starting in January of each year - for a large group art piece that anyone in the booru can choose to submit their characters to - kind of like the collab, except I’d also allow people to add canon characters if they were willing to pay for them, and there would be a loose dress code to each one, so everyone stays on theme.

By making this a separate event, it means no-one has to worry about this replacing the collab, that can just continue on as it has every other year. ^^

Right, now then: the big one. Left for the bottom of the post so everyone else here can just tl;dr if they’d prefer.
@Twiface
There’s a reason I’m having trouble believing you, it’s because I’ve heard it all before and yet the snipes keep on happening.

If I’m wrong about you: Fine. Prove me wrong by learning something from this incident and don’t do it again. I’m not asking the world of you, I’m literally just asking you to Stop. Pushing. This. Bullshit. Story.

You were IN the volunteer chats, you know what happened. Tempers got fiery when we were all arguing due to the confusion regarding the poor planning, but then after we all ended up on the same page, tempers cooled down.

It was AFTER we all came to an agreement on what we needed the collab to be, and with cooler heads that I made the decision to resign, due entirely to the fact that I was no longer doing the only job I had been left with. The badge has to mean something if we want to wear it, otherwise why not give every user who asks a Public Relations tag? Fuck, let’s give Anon the badge if it’s so worthless that people who literally aren’t contributing at all are allowed to wear it!

I did NOT leave in a huff because people didn’t like my idea, I did NOT disavow the booru on anyone on it, I did NOT forsake the booru entirely or went anywhere. I just stopped showing up in the volunteer chat because it wasn’t my business anymore. I’ve never been the most frequent poster here anyway, especially not with all the shit I’ve been dealing with in my life lately. I just don’t have time for cartoon ponies all day.

And finally I did NOT force or otherwise convince N0KKUN to stop working on our fancy custom background - the one I was paying for entirely out of my own pocket mind, it’s not like anyone else here lost money over it - out of pettiness and spite. He didn’t want to make it, I had to basically drag him for co-operation as far as I did. What can I say, he just wasn’t as keen on the workload as I was in seeing the vision brought to life.
I could probably still get him to make a much more simple background for us, but the planned casino image with a bistro, slot machines, stage, balcony, etc. nope…no he was eager to stop work on that and I can’t make him take it up again.

So stop claiming I did any of that. Stop giving affirmation to people claiming I did that. It’s one thing when AnonTroll says it, it’s another when you - who was a fellow volunteer at the time and in constant communication with me - makes the same claim. I cannot see why you don’t seem to understand that, and since I never really got the impression that you were clueless or a blithering moron about social situations, I can only assume you’re doing this on purpose. Which would mean your behaviour is unfavorably comparable to DB staff, and hence my trust issues towards you.

It is slanderous and damaging to my reputation as someone who can be relied upon to organise a community art piece and I was sincerely trying my damn best to get this all to work. Now half the users on the booru think I stormed off in anger because of a petty spat, and the other half think I actively sabotaged it by “taking” the artist who was making our background for us away.

And also there are some Anons who are just trying to start shit, but hey, Sun shines, grass is green, water is wet, anons need better things to do with their precious-and-finite time, what else is new?

I don’t like to hold onto anger or hate anymore, I did that for so any years and it was poisonous to me. I’d just prefer to forgive and move on, (I don’t even bother responding to Urban these days and that man is the puss-filled blister of the PB forums that just will not pop) but I do feel the need to stress that regardless of when I’m ready to let go of my anger, I cannot trust you to act in good faith towards me and it is entirely because of how you’ve been talking to and about me in relation to this project.

If I’m wrong to think that then fine: Prove me wrong. But the onus for that is on you, I can’t make you snipping at me like this.
If this whole thing is sincerely just you putting your foot in your mouth time and time again, then just remember this rule: any claim you make about a fellow volunteer has significantly more weight then anyone else doing so, since you were part of the chat. And people these days generally have a negativity bias, so they’re more likely to believe a flaw or negative about someone then a positive, at the slightest suggestion of “supporting evidence”.
That’s why you get to bare the brunt of the anger when you state or affirm untrue things, while Anon is barely acknowledged.
Anon’s word means nothing, the same cannot be said for Yours. As someone who wanted to claim the unofficial title as our leader, you should have that very basic principle of leadership nailed down.

Your main issue is that you are/were trying to rush to a finish line or deadline that was only in your head. Initially it was less then a week I believe from the time a collab was first brought up to when we had a theme and deadline set for it. You are racing no one but yourself on this and you would simply risk burning out well before anything meaningful came out of it all.

You aren’t an anon in this case and you have at least some weight to what you say and mention in regards to others and to the collab in general. Forgetting that and speaking as though you are just another trolling anon on a random board somewhere is what mainly seems to be hurting you here. Also feeling the need to reply to everything doesn’t help you either. That anon could have just as easily been ignored and nothing more would have come of it… but that clearly didn’t happen here and caused some tempers to flare again when everything should have been settled.

Yes, you are somewhat to blame for this. I can’t skirt around that fact and you do need to realize that and own up to it. But you can also try to make amends for this as well by simply watching what you say and to stop impulsively acting on things. If it was a decision in regards to the collab it NEEDS to be brought to the attention of the other members before just stating it as fact. Early on you were kinda bad about just making your own decisions and rules and stating them as facts if we didn’t reply to them in a few hours or so. While I think you have calmed down on that a bit after some previous discussions I had with you, you still need some work on pacing, planning, and simply thinking before you act.

I don’t mind if you happen to stay on the team, but you MUST plan and make decisions with the group if you do. Acting as a leader in this situation doesn’t mean Feather and I are just blindly following your choices…. it means you would be the one voicing our joint decisions on things. Even if it takes a couple of days to come to a decision on something, then that is fine as there is no time constraints placed upon us for that.

Overall I would highly suggest adopting a ‘think before you speak’ mentality before doing any posting online. Type out what you want to say at first but don’t post it yet… then reread the thing to see how it sounds and to fix any errors. After you get through that then think about what the reply might accomplish and what it might impact. If it’s only purpose is just a mindless reply to something then you really don’t need to make that reply at all. If it’s answering a question that you know the answer to then that should be fine. If it’s something potentially hurtful then either rewrite it out or just don’t post it at all.

I do this all the time when I post. That is why it sometimes takes me a while to make a post as I will put everything down in text first, reread it a bit and correct grammar and such, then fix or remove or add what I might need to. After that I will post it…. that is often the reason I end up with these massive posts like I do as I try to get everything down that I want to say in one go while also formatting it and making sure it’s as clear as I can make it before posting it at all. (just your section here has taken me about 10-15 minutes alone or more… :D)

As I said before, it certainly wouldn’t hurt to still have you on the team. But overall as long as there are submissions and I or someone else can come up with a background, then even if it’s just me I will still throw the thing together.

Now in regards to your issues with Twi here… I believe a lot of this flak and problems are arising due to the manner/style in which you type things up. The amount of bold, underlined, and capitalized words in your messages can give the impression of someone raising their voice, shouting, or being otherwise angry about things. While you might not mean it as such, that is still how it comes across to me at least. Somewhat how I mentioned to Twi above, a ‘think before you speak’ method might work for you as well here. However when you reread your stuff, don’t read it as you specifically might be thinking but how it looks like. From a reader’s standpoint, bold words imply emphasis or simply the implication of shouting or confrontation. Underlined implies stressing a point or being angry about said point. Capitalizing words implies a bit of both of those in stressing or angrily shouting a point.

While you might not specifically mean it to be interpenetrated as such, it is what I, as a reader, get the implications of. Which is probably why some of these anons and users are trolling in such ways as that is the common implications in that style of typing. Rereading your own messages with those common implications in mind might give you a better understanding of where some of these claims are coming from and how it might come across to others. Just be mindful and maybe lean toward more simplistic messages and statements without much embellishments.

Anyway… hopefully this wasn’t too harsh on either of you and helps you both out a bit in these regards. I am certainly still not very active on forums outside of the couple I have already replied in before but I am still willing to help either of you out if I am able to. Just take a day or two to calm down for now and we can further talk about collab stuff at a later date. As I mentioned before, if this runs into next year then so be it… as long as it gets done in the end then what does it matter?

And now a message to everyone else here…. I will still put the final piece together if we get submissions in. Time frame is still very much up in the air for now but trying to submit stuff before December would be nice. If submissions run past that then so be it, I will still use them in the end as long as it’s not drastically late. Message me directly either here or in Discord if you have specifics with your submission that I might need to know. (placement, hated/liked characters, specific poses, etc.)

As of right now I am still going to try leaning towards a light Casino theme but it might be changed to just a more simple one later… so just be mindful of that with your submissions.

Currently I don’t really have any hard restrictions with submissions outside of them being safe and of your own OC’s or ones you have permission to draw. Alternatively the more community OC’s are still mostly fair game such as Fallout:Equestria characters, Fluffle Puff, Nyx/Dyx, or any other more common ones which are more community made and used. Still no official characters outside of depictions of them either through plushes or outfits that your characters can hold or wear. Try to ask me beforehand if you have any questions about it though. Depending on Twiface and FeatherTrap’s decisions I will be doing what I can to answer anything that comes up myself for now. That might change still so just keep watch around here or on Discord. :)

This will be my last post here before I unsubscribe from the thread and move on.

@FeatherTrap
@runner2

I will keep all of this in mind going forward.

Maybe next year, but I’m done for now. You don’t need me here, and I’ve done nothing but cause trouble with my involvement.

I had no idea so much drama would ensue once we started all this. Here’s to hoping we don’t continue to lose more collaborators before the end of the year, I suppose.

I take it we can start sending in our horses with more confidence, in any case? Themed or not, I just look forward to seeing everyone chillin’ at this point.

@runner2
A well reasoned and measured message, I suppose I have been letting my temper flare up recently. There’s been a lot of shit going on in my life right now but that’s no excuse for it.

Well then, I’ll say but one last thing and say we put this drama behind us:

@Twiface
If you’re sincere in your words, then please be more mindful about how you present yourself and those you’re working with. As runner2 said, you can’t just act like a trolling anon on another board when talking about those who are supposed to be your colleagues. I’ve done enough volunteer work to know even in that setting, a certain level of professional decorum is expected as a given.

Oh and a final note to the ENTIRE team (myself included); next year when we do this - or if any of you would be interested in helping me organize that annual group picture idea - let’s all please make sure we have all the rules laid down, an actionable plan and timeframe all sorted out before we announce anything. Hopefully we can avoid this clusterfuck in future. <:P

@DuskenDraws
Don’t worry, that was the last thing I wanted to say. Drama over now.

And I suppose this means I’m rejoining the volunteer team, since I don’t want to leave this with just the two of you. There has to be something I can do to make the load easier.

@runner2
At this point, I’m tempted to ask N0KKUN for a damn snowy background so we can make it a vaguely Christmas/Hearthswarming aesthetic to be in line with the estimated completion schedule.

I know you keep mentioning the casino but seriously - and if I am going to be back on the volunteer team, I ask my words to be taken with due serious consideration - can we please just fucking drop the casino theme, given that the original vision of the “Themed Collab” was quite contentious (as a replacement to the traditional faire anyway) and the impracticality of trying to get it done in the timeframe we have, I must repeat my notion that we forgo it.

It could work well as the first 2025 Annual Themed Group Picture - since this whole thing was my idea anyway - but for us, in this context, it’s nothing but an albatross around our necks. Please can we just drop it and use a more practical background for a simple collab?

As I mentioned, I could get N0KKUN to throw together something Hearthswarming themed, if the Christmas period is going to be our projected release date. <:3

If you are rejoining as the background planner then I certainly don’t mind changing it up somewhat. I was either going to use a casino photo from Google images with some slight alterations or potentially grab some free assets for a 3D program and throw it together like that then photoshop it a bit to try to make it less 3D. Whatever you end up with I don’t mind though. Whatever you settle on just let it be known as soon as you can.

Anyway.. hopefully everything mellows out now and word can properly get around to start getting some submissions flowing in as there’s currently only like 3. >.> I will still be lurking around to answer whatever pops up and to help where I can. Just poke me through a direct message here or @ me on Discord as I will often miss just a normal message on there.

I certainly wouldn’t mind the snowy winter theme, myself. It’s fairly easy to draw up some winter clothes, and the ones without winter clothes don’t stand out too badly at least. Totally not because I’m a sucker for cozy clothes on ponies.

It’s November and still no progress, can we confirm that the collaboration activity is dead now?

Progress = people posting their submissions. What are we supposed to do while waiting for those submissions?

December is the rough deadline at this point and submissions should ideally be completed and submitted by sometime in December.

You being a little anon doomposter doesn’t change anything as it has been clearly mentioned that the collab is still going on and we are still accepting submissions. If you want to participate then go for it. Otherwise stop being a silly anon. :)

Has anyone posted any new submissions since?

I’m literally just waiting for the artist to get back to me with the background after a month of clearing his orders. He’s already getting started on it and I hope to have it in a few weeks.