When I logged in today for the first time and opened my profile, a magic number was suddenly sitting there: 1000. One thousand followers. I had seen this coming. The numbers have basically exploded over the last six weeks. Still, expecting it and then watching it actually happen are two very different things.

And wow, these last six weeks have been a ride, I tell you.

How this account actually started

When I registered the account, I mostly made NSFW work, probably like most newcomers. I already had some practice and jumped straight into Krea 2, so those images, even though a large share of them belonged in the hardcore category, were apparently still aesthetic enough that the first followers arrived pretty fast. Those early images also collected a surprising number of likes from the start. That is why I stayed and kept going.

The visibility shift in August

Then, at the beginning of August, something happened. Suddenly there was a new section called "New and upcoming creators," but only on the clean PG and PG-13 tier. One of my early PG pieces landed in that rotation and started collecting likes like crazy.

That got me hooked on trying more of that work. Then the next small miracle happened, because those images became extremely visible thanks to the new section. Someone was kind enough to recommend my robin image for Ellie's Features, and she actually featured it. From that moment on, everything took off.

Once more: wow. What a ride!

What the new tools changed

So I have to say that the updates, making more creators visible and especially giving lesser known people a real shot, genuinely helped me. I also love that there are now many more collections on the homepage. They give curators a chance to show work from other people that they particularly liked. If only all those constantly recurring bugs would finally go away...... sigh

But this is not the place to complain about the site. I would rather use the moment to thank this awesome community.

People I want to name

A few names I want to mention directly, because they contributed a lot to this:

@Ellie_TheFoxyPaladin, @purplelady, @Experimental_dAIver, @ZeroStress, @Sleeps_In_Sunbeams, @Leveno99, @Lostcut, @tehalex86, @JonTerboven, @LawOfAI, @Chumple, @BuzzDispenser3000, @Eva4321, and many others still, for their tips, their collections, the great comments on my images, and in general for the chances they give newcomers, and for how newcomers get support from so many users in so many ways.

I thank all of you from the bottom of my heart. I am looking forward to a lot more progress together. 💛

Your good old Sempai