Field notes #1: July 2026 - Things your Bluesky can do for you as an artist + Artfight, ArtWHAT?

Welcome to field notes! A little series I and others will be doing to talk about all things art on the Atmosphere!

What's the atmosphere?

It's just a funny little nickname to call all services on Atprotocol, the same technology that powers Bluesky. Atprotocol basically gives you the equivalent of phone number, meaning that if you change your carrier (like say from Bluesky to Blacksky or to your own website and domain) or decide you hate the microblogging format all together - there's no porting, or having to make new accounts and your followers generally come with you as well as your feeds and settings, sometimes even blocks, depending on the platform (like this one lol. I asked for that one!)

No programming or major tech knowledge needed.

So I just sign in?

Hell yeah. Hate the Bluesky app? Sign into an alternative client like Witchsky

Like the photo up front format but hate the Instagram default algorithm (me the fuck too, tbh)

Welcome to Pinkleap! They also support mastodon/Activitypub accounts!

Hate modern social media and demand the death of the timeline entirely? Try aniisota a really different kind of gamified experience for your social media

Fucking miss Myspace? Love neocities? Guess what - you can even have a top 8 again AND do CSS crimes on Twinkl.social

You can even make sure you don't see anyone else's CSS, be the dictator of your own experience.

Again, there's nothing you have to do really except log in! You keep your data no matter what on the place you pick and there's no "verification" for the you because it automatically is just from the account you signed in on. Whether that's Bluesky or elsewhere.

Why should I care?

This is cool, because it means that if you don't have to "Verify" that it was posted from you.
So say you start a blog, like me, all of your blogs on all ATprotocol services (like here on Leaflet, or on Pckt, or if you're very fancy, Offprint.) will automatically be on the account that you signed in from, aka it's a super easy link to all the places you're already posting. And again, your blocks carry over in most places, making it easy to set up without harassment vectors as well. And with additions like Blacksky introducing permissioned spaces - it also means that if you're from a marginalized community that you may be able to move a bit more safer, and take your audience with you.

The devs here actually care too.

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Working with the devs at Leaflet I've helped design with them to help provide easy to use, low-set up tools that are mobile friendly. I'm no shill here, and I didn't get paid. I'm working as head of product with a different, non-protocol related company, Trueref, as Head of Product and Creative Director. (And I am reminded by my boss to remind everyone that my opinions are my very much my own.)

It mostly started as me crying because my JavaScript on my own website wouldn't work and I didn't know how to fix it only to find out it was Neocities problem so in a fit of rage I opened Figma, chopped and screwed screenshots of my own leaflet blog, and provided them a detailed wishlist of features I wanted for comics.

About 70% of what I was asked was implemented in a week. Including more prominent RSS, first/last buttons, separate pages, and image resizing.

Go check it out!

Or check out @nerdigrey.bsky.social 's much better comic LOL

Talking about other cool art communities on the atmosphere though

Did you know? On the atmosphere there's no universal enforced algorithm. So you can pick feeds for your interests. There's a really cool feed for science based educational art

Witchsky

Or elves, where you can see elf-only posts. If you're into that (I'm definitely into that)

Witchsky

Or you can just pick feeds that give you behavior, like this one, which lets you see artists that you follow that rarely post

Witchsky

(like those amazing artists who never say anything they just drop art and go once a week like this one)

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My timeline is super mega dead though, who do I follow?

Got you.

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Other community news: Artfight is closing... artfuck begins?

For those who don't know, Artfight is a massive online event where artists from across the world come together to trade art of each other's characters as a way of "fighting." You can read more about it here! Unfortunately, it's almost over!

It's so popular throughout the atmosphere, you might've seen it trending. Truthfully I didn't know much about it until I had joined the atmosphere.

You'll sometimes find these cards going around, starting people's preferences, their team (this year there are 3!) and their characters

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Here's some beautiful attacks from this year

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There's still a few days left for whoever wants to go, just remember that you only have a few days left.

However, there is a Atprotocol NSFW version apparently - Artfuck, which apparently starts August 1st!

ARTF*CK 🔞 (@artfuck.bsky.social)

Community Spotlight artist #1:@asspiringauthor.bsky.social

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Nominated by @bisprout.nekoweb.org

Have an artist that you'd like to feature in an upcoming newsletter? @ me or comment them here! Just can't be yourself. Let's show some community love!

See you next time!