Matt, he/him, trans & queer, 33. The Detroit Red Wings are my hometown team. Have mercy on me. I haven't followed hockey since back when they were winning Stanley Cups.
When youāre in the middle of playing hockey, you donāt have much time or lungpower to spare for lengthy chats, so hockey players develop a lot of on-ice shorthand. Some of this is probably limited to beer leagues like mine, but Iāve definitely heard a few of these phrases caught on the rink-level mics during NHL games, so I thought maybe some of yāall who donāt play hockey might be interested in translations of a few of the things hockey players yell at each other mid-game.
OFF = You are offside.
OOOOOOOFF = You are offside and donāt seem to realize it; stop trying to touch the puck and move your ass out of the fucking zone before you force a whistle.
CHANGE = Youāve been on the ice a long time.
CHAAAAAAANGE = Are you aware that there are other people on this team who would like to play hockey at some point?
ONE ON = An opposing player is trying to get the puck away from you and it appears that you havenāt noticed.
GOT TIME = Donāt panic and fling the puck into Siberia, thereās no one close enough to take it away from you right this second.
ICE IT = Weāve been in our zone for three minutes and everyone on the ice is nearing collapse, so go ahead, panic and fling the puck into Siberia.
IāM OPEN = Pass toward the sound of my voice right fucking now.
ALL YOU = Take the puck forward yourself; everyone else is far enough behind you that you should not rely on getting any backup on this developing play.
I GOT YOU = You are so egregiously out of position that it makes more sense for us to just switch jobs for a minute.
I GOT IT = If we both skate hard to the puck at the same time, as is currently happening, there will be no one to pass it to and also we are liable to collide in an unproductive fashion, so just let me handle it.
I GOT IT I GOT IT I GOT IT = You did not listen to me and we are about to collide in an unproductive fashion.
edited to add: NOOOOOOOOOOO = The ref has signaled no icing on this play, so quit gliding while you wait for a whistle and move your damn feet. (This is probably the most confusing one to overhear if you donāt know what it means XD)
back in the day this post made the rounds in hockey RPF and in Check Please and I am pleased to see once again a hockey-based fandom full of people who know nothing about hockey circulating this crucial info XD for the record I am always happy to splain hockey at pretty much anyone who asks!
oh that just means theyāre a goalie. there is no explaining goalies. one time I asked my goalie why he didnāt use a gear bag with wheels (goalie bags almost always have wheels bc they have more/heavier equipment) and heābent almost double under the weight of his gigantic bagālooked me straight in the eye and said āit makes me appreciate the game more.ā I once knew a goalie who communicated solely via gifs of porn bloopers. thereās one NHL goalie whose pregame ritual is to go sit in the empty arena and stare at the empty ice surface for literal hours. each goalie is a full subculture that no one understands but themselves
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I binged Heated Rivalry while I painted today and 10/10 enjoyed very much.
Scott Hunter gave big ol' Jack energy (especially from a like...a ~slightly older, met Bitty *after* Samwell~ AU I remember reading) which was a treat.
hi matt!! i have a question i really really hope you can help with - i remember ages ago there was an art prompt about genderfluid or genderqueer jack zimmermann with flow-y hair in a bun with wispies and flowers and i thought it was you but can't find it anywhere (besides the one piece of him with his hair down).. WAS it you? and if so could you direct me there or repost it? i'm jonsing for that art
I feel like I remember that....so i *think* it was me haha > - >.
Was iiiiiit this one?
š¬ 1Ā Ā š 809Ā Ā ā¤ļø 1221Ā Ā·Ā Ahhhhh sooooooo. Waaaay back when,Ā @irlkent tagged me in this postĀ about the possibility of a genderfluid Jack?
This t
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VERY EXCITED TO FINALLY SHARE.... The endpaper illustration I did for the @rainbowcrate edition of Peter Darling (by @essaychant)!
It was an honor and an absolute delight to paint this view of Peter, Neverland, and [sexy sexy] Hook.
(In Rainbow Crate's "Hoist the Colors" July 2025 box! Extras are available now.
Link to get your very own, very fancy copy of Peter Darling. )
(Once again sharing gay book stuff from my Professional Account in case any Check Please enjoyers would like to enjoy other things I'm involved in >.>)
SO excited to finally share the cover I painted for Neon Hemlock's WE'RE HERE: THE BEST QUEER SPECULATIVE FICTION 2024
Table of contents *AND PREORDER LINK* here: https://www.neonhemlock.com/books/were-here-the-best-queer-speculative-fiction-2024
Cover by me, Matt. Painted in watercolor, gouache and colored pencil with minor digital edits, Art Directed by Neon Hemlock editor dave ring.
We're Here 2024 contents selected by guest editor Ryka Aoki and series editor Charles Payseur.
See the creation process from thumbnail to painting wips on my Patreon.
š Hey Reading Rainbows! Itās time for our next artist reveal for the July Hoist the Colors crate! Next up is Matt (@mspencerdraws) who illustrated the endpapers for Peter, Darling by S.A. Chant!
How excited are you to see the new endpaper?
From the artist:
Hey, Iām Matt, a transmasc illustrator from southeast Michigan and love my job! In my quest to combine my deep love for watercolor & ink with my passion for fantasy, sci-fi and horror (especially when queer characters are involved) Iāve had the pleasure of contributing to group Tarot decks, ttrpg supplements, and a treasure trove of indie books and magazines. When not neck deep in awesome freelance projects, Iām illustrating my own Courtly Beasts Tarot, playing in one of several ongoing DnD campaigns, or spending time with my dog, who is a very special baby boy.
š Subscription spots are currently open for 1, 3 and 6 month subscription spots! These will start with the June crate! Use RAINBOW10 to save on your first month! Subscribe on our website!
Our original queer book box subscription. Each box comes with 2 hardcover, fully customized, special edition queer books. Ā For a spicier op
ID: A quartet of illustrations arranged in quadrants of the graphic. Surrounding the illustrations is a color coordinating border. In the center it reads āArtist Spotlight: @mspencerdrawsā. End ID.
Weāre pleased to reveal that our July 2025 theme isā¦
š“āā ļø HOIST THE COLORS! š“āā ļø
š“āā ļøBOOK 1 for July is Fragments of a Fallen Star by Viano Oniomoh (@vianoniomoh)! Fragments of a Fallen Star is a whimsical and heartwarming New Adult fantasy adventure romance about grief, healing, and falling in love
š“āā ļøOUR RAINBOW CRATE EXCLUSIVE FEATURES: ā
- Signed edition!
- New dust jacket with gold and black foiling & spot gloss
- Illustrated hard case with gold foil
- GORGEOUS Character art endpaper
- Printed edges
- Bonus glossaryĀ
š“āā ļøBOOK AT-A-GLANCE:
GENRE: Fantasy Romance
REP: Black Cisgender Lesbian FMC, Black Cisgender Demisexual FLI, Aroace side character, Trans and nonbinary side characters, All queer and POC main cast
SPICE: ā ā āāā
LENGTH: 398 pgs
š“āā ļøBOOK 2 for July is Peter Darling by S.A. ChantĀ (@s.a.chant)! Peter Darling is a bold and beautifully done, touching queer retelling of Peter Pan set in the modern day.
š“āā ļøOUR RAINBOW CRATE EXCLUSIVE FEATURES: ā
- Signed edition!
- New dust jacket with gold foiling & pearl gloss
- Illustrated case with black foiling
- Beautiful art endpapers (same front and back)
- Printed edges
- Bonus Content: Short story
š“āā ļøBOOK AT-A-GLANCE:
GENRE: Adult Urban Fantasy
REP: Queer trans male main character, Queer physically disabled cis male love interest, Queer cis male secondary character
SPICE: ā ā āāā
LENGTH: 216 pgs
-
š Limited subs are open now! Queer books are going to be facing an uphill battle for the next four years, but we arenāt going anywhere! Start a subscription for yourself or a loved one at the link below to make 2025 a year full of queer (books)!
https://rainbowcratebookbox.com/collections/subscriptions
Was looking through my "to-draw" list the other day and idk when/if I'll have the time/inclination for this one but I figured I'd share with y'all.
(Many thanks to my partner for the comment that they could imagine this. My partner whose only real experience with Check Please was reading thru the whole thing in order to paint me more accurate fanart as a birthday present years ago when I was In the Thick Of It [TheFandom])
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I am SO happy to finally be able to share that I had the honor of painting the cover for upcoming Neon Hemlock sword & sorcery anthology Shatter the Sun: Queer Tales of Untold Adventure!
Funding now on Kickstarter š tinyurl.com/wn6mzmf7
If you like reading EXCELLENT stories/poems/etc. with queer characters, or even just great horror/fantasy/sci-fi/genre/spec fic in general, Neon Hemlock consistently publishes fantastic work. Everything I've had the pleasure to do with them is very much by lgbtq people and (though not explicitly) for lgbtq people.
Please check this, and the rest of their books out!
(I've got illustrations in a number of them, including Queer horror anthologies The Crawling Moon and Unfettered Hexes)
This is your irregularly scheduled "I've been out of the fandom for a while but it's because I'm so busy freelancing for awesome queer publishers and making original stuff, here's what I'm up to" post!
I got like a bunch of new followers on my frickin twitter (and my old All For the Game sideblog @smokesontheroof ) because of a nice showcase from @otdiaftg. (Thanks!)
And I'm here reminiscing, (with a HEAPING overly full plate of freelance work and absolutely no spare time (because I am a professional and so much has changed in the last 6 years)) like "what if I drew A Fanart again".
Anyway hi, happy Pride, love you guys š¤
(my current art is at @mspencerdraws these days, same handle on insta, bluesky, twitter, cara)
Some time in the futureā¦
Just Jack and Bitty livinā their best lives.
(A lilā belated Pride month thing)
My other Check Please stuff
My Not-Check Please Stuff
Automattic will sign a contract with OpenAI for Midjourney to learn off of Tumblr and Wordpress
Hello! Automattic, Tumblr's parent company, will sign a contract with OpenAI and Midjourney so Midjourney can learn off of Tumblr's and WordPress' art and other user data. :) (The full text of this article is copy/pasted in the cut below). You can opt out! but I truly cannot imagine a more idiotic or out of touch decision on the part of Tumblr's CEO.
First thing's first: When/if this goes live, opt out of this immediately. Do this even if you're not an artist. The more people opt out, the less valuable this contract is to Midjourney. in an ideal world, literally all of the active users would opt out, but if we can even get to 50% that's pretty delicious.
Second: Contact Tumblr Support. It's vital that you do this politely. Tumblr staff is not responsible for this decision and the point of doing this is to show the userbase's unwillingness to be involved in this, not harangue Tumblr staff. (Seriously, stop haranguing Tumblr staff). Here's a script:
Hi, I'm writing in to express my disappointment in Automattic's pending contract with OpenAI to sell user data. Midjourney is already embroiled in copyright lawsuits, and it is not possible to train it without compromising copyright, including violating the IP of artists on this site. I strongly protest this contract and will opt out if it goes live. Depending on the privacy terms around what user data is sold to OpenAI and why, it is possible I will leave the platform entirely. Thank you for your time.
Third: Download Glaze and start poisoning them prompts, my friends
Fourth: Stare into the middle distance for a second with me because holy fucking shit? How stupid can one decision be?
Tumblr and Wordpress are preparing to sell user data to Midjourney and OpenAI, according to a source with internal knowledge about the deals and internal documentation referring to the deals.Ā
The exact types of data from each platform going to each company are not spelled out in documentation weāve reviewed, but internal communications reviewed by 404 Media make clear that deals between Automattic, the platformsā parent company, and OpenAI and Midjourney are imminent.
The internal documentation details a messy and controversial process within Tumblr itself. One internal post made by Cyle Gage, a product manager at Tumblr, states that a query made to prepare data for OpenAI and Midjourney compiled a huge number of user posts that it wasnāt supposed to. It is not clear from Gageās post whether this data has already been sent to OpenAI and Midjourney, or whether Gage was detailing a process for scrubbing the data before it was to be sent.Ā
Gage wrote:
āthe way the data was queried for the initial data dump to Midjourney/OpenAI means we compiled a list of all tumblrās public post content between 2014 and 2023, but also unfortunately it included, and should not have included:
private posts on public blogs
posts on deleted or suspended blogs
unanswered asks (normally these are not public until theyāre answered)
private answers (these only show up to the receiver and are not public)
posts that are marked āexplicitā / NSFW / āmatureā by our more modern standards (this may not be a big deal, I donāt know)
content from premium partner blogs (special brand blogs like Appleās former music blog, for example, who spent money with us on an ad campaign) that may have creative that doesnāt belong to us, and we donāt have the rights to share with this-parties; this one is kinda unknown to me, what deals are in place historically and what they should prevent us from doing.ā
Gageās post makes clear that engineers are working on compiling a list of post IDs that should not have been included, and that password-protected posts, DMs, and media flagged as CSAM and other community guidelines violations were not included.
Automattic plans to launch a new setting on Wednesday that will allow users to opt-out of data sharing with third parties, including AI companies, according to the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, and internal documents. A new FAQ section we reviewed is titled āWhat happens when you opt out?ā states that āIf you opt out from the start, we will block crawlers from accessing your content by adding your site on a disallowed list. If you change your mind later, we also plan to update any partners about people who newly opt-out and ask that their content be removed from past sources and future training.āĀ
404 Media has asked Automattic how it accidentally compiled data that it shouldnāt share, and whether any of that content was shared with OpenAI, but did not immediately hear back from the company. 404 Media asked Automattic about an imminent deal with Midjourney last week but did not hear back then, either.
Another internal document shows that, on February 23, an employee asked in a staff-only thread, āDo we have assurances that if a user opts out of their data being shared with third parties that our existing data partners will be notified of such a change and remove their data?ā
Andrew Spittle, Automatticās head of AI replied: āWe will notify existing partners on a regular basis about anyone who's opted out since the last time we provided a list. I want this to be an ongoing process where we regularly advocate for past content to be excluded based on current preferences. We will ask that content be deleted and removed from any future training runs. I believe partners will honor this based on our conversations with them to this point. I don't think they gain much overall by retaining it.ā Automattic did not respond to a question from 404 Media about whether it could guarantee that people who opt out will have their data deleted retroactively.
News about a deal between Tumblr and Midjourney has been rumored and speculated about on Tumblr for the last week. Someone claiming to be a former Tumblr employee announced in a Tumblr blog post that the platform was working on a deal with Midjourney, and the rumor made it onto Blind, an app for verified employees of companies to anonymously discuss their jobs. 404 Media has seen the Blind posts, in which what seems like an Automattic employee says, āI'm not sure why some of you are getting worked up or worried about this. It's totally legal, and sharing it publicly is perfectly fine since it's right there in the terms & conditions. So, go ahead and spread the word as much as you can with your friends and tech journalists, it's totally fine.ā
Separately, 404 Media viewed a public, now-deleted post by Gage, the product manager, where he said that he was deleting all of his images off of Tumblr, and would be putting them on his personal website. A still-live post says, āi've deleted my photography from tumblr and will be moving it slowly but surely over to cylegage.com, which i'm building into a photography portfolio that i can control end-to-end.ā At one point last week, his personal website had a specific note stating that he did not consent to AI scraping of his images. Gageās original post has been deleted, and his website is now a blank page that just reads āCyle.ā Gage did not respond to a request for comment from 404 Media.Ā
Several online platforms have made similar deals with AI companies recently, including Reddit, which entered into an AI content licensing deal with Google and said in its SEC filing last week that itās āin the early stages of monetizing [its] user baseā by training AI on usersā posts. Last year, Shutterstock signed a six year deal with OpenAI to provide training data.
OpenAI and Midjourney did not respond to requests for comment.Ā
When French-Canadian hockey player Ghyslain andĀ French ballet dancer Florent meet at the end of their respective careers, they rediscover what it means to truly love what you do.
You buy the whole comic on my itch for whatever price you like ā¤ļø
Love of the Game is an erotic comic meant for adults over the age of 18.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
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Rallying Cry
Heās taken some arrows but this steadfast and colorful paladin will continue to stand up for his flock.
ā
Inspired by Pride- past present and future: by the ones who came before us and the ones whoāll pick up where we leave off, by community and strength in the face of adversity.
Painted in watercolor, gouache, and colored pencil on 140lb Arches hot press paper. Accented with gold ink and genuine gold leaf.
Painted for Every Day Original (and sold!)
Keeper of the Vernal Labyrinth
The Prince of Spring hosts merry tourneys on his festival grounds, but the twists and turns of hedgerows nearly muffleĀ the revelry, allowing the humble keeper of the Labyrinth to delight in the pleasant āsnip snipā of creating order from chaos.
ā
Inspired by evergreen boxwoods, by the tease of a warm spring breeze in the middle of winter, and by the joy of getting lost in the details.
Painted in watercolor, gouache, and colored pencil on 140lb Arches hot press paper. Accented with 23K gold leaf.
The artwork is double matted and framed in a vintage frame, painted to match.
