#Anyways. There's the rant.

[noisytenant]

You can stop capitalism and the attention economy from sucking the joy out of art for you right now*

*at the small price of, perhaps, your hopes and dreams.

Commodification and competition only suck the joy out of art when you buy into them. If you want to make art for fun and not worry about attention economies and algorithms then literally just stop worrying about them, and accept the consequences of that.

What are the consequences? There are artists who have successfully risen to a living wage off posting their art online, and in the shadow of these prominent but rare figures it is difficult not to dream of having even a sliver of their luck. And this is to say nothing about the social and emotional fulfillment of sharing art with others, but I'll be focusing on the economics here.

It's luck. Commercially successful artists who seem to have "gamed the algorithm" are prone to survivorship bias--it's impossible to know how many artists have tried the same tactics only to get nowhere. And most will attest that every step of these attention-economy-appeasing rituals is demoralizing and exhausting. Many--even those who succeed--give up or take a step back.

But if these rituals are so awful, why perform them? To potentially increase the meager chances of economic success as an internet artist? To see your engagement numbers go up?

I don't want to tell people to give up on this dream because I believe it is impossible. Instead, it is possible, which is the trap. And when the entire economy and job market are so dire, it's difficult not to dream of that lottery ticket.

I do believe we can live in a world where we can survive and make the art that brings us joy--Through significant effort and numerous systemic changes at every level of culture and society. And in the meantime, there is a huge grey area of economic sustainability--if you make even a little money off your art, that's more in your pocket.

But hobbyist artists have been making and continue to make art out of joy and curiosity regardless of how popular or commercially viable it is, it's just harder to find them on common online platforms. They're in your neighborhood, at work, in your family and probably among your friends, sitting at the library leafing through a "How to Draw" book or signing up for an adult beginner's class, if they have the money. And when we promote the idea that art is fun for everyone, we make more space for people to enjoy it.

We have a finite amount of time and energy every day. Our capitalist economy saps us of both such that we have very little left to devote to our passions. But we fail to realize how much more we lose investing in an arbitrary and fickle economy that is, in fact, entirely optional. If you work a day job with clearly defined hours, you may spend several hours miserably--and that is a problem that needs addressing--but your day ends. Meanwhile, the work of a professional internet artist is never done--You are always on the clock.

I feel heartbroken when I see artists lamenting how joyless, soul-sucking, and uninspiring art has become for them in the midst of our current circumstances. I think they are correct in identifying that the attention economy saps them of this joy--But they are not seeing the forest for the trees.

It is the difference between the expectation of success and the reality of disappointment, rather than the disappointment itself, that leads to such a depressing state of affairs. Let go of the idea that sufficient effort scales with reward in a system as arbitrary as ours. Save your energy. The best way to win is not to play.

Art is as beautiful and life-affirming as it ever was. Realize what it has to offer you, and realize what you need from elsewhere. We still need food and a roof over our heads. We still need friends and community. If we want art to occupy a joyful space in our lives, we need to rely on other parts of ourselves to get through the sometimes boring, tedious, and depressing work of living our daily lives.

Our capitalist system and its associated attention economy deserve every criticism they can get, but if we fail to question their fundamental assumptions, we will never truly move past them. We have the autonomy to untangle capital from our artistic lives, if not completely, at least to a more manageable state.

So, believe that art can be fun again. The things you want to see in the world are waiting for you to make them.

[ithappensoffstage]

I am genuinely so worried for all the young horny dykes going into adulthood thinking there's something "problematic" / "wrong" with them for being horny because fucking tiktok lesbians think any horny dyke content is "male gaze fetishistic"

[aprillikesthings]

“Bamboo is antifungal”

Because it’s rayon

“Eucalyptus fabric is cooling!”

Yeah, because it’s rayon

“We make clothing called seacell out of seaweed!”

Yeah I looked on your website it’s made by the lyocell process, which means-

-wait for it-

It’s fucking rayon!!

Listen. There is a list of actual plant fibers that are directly made into fabric: cotton, linen, ramie, some hemp. I’m sure I’m missing a couple.

But if you’re wondering “huh how did they turn that plant material into fabric,” 99% of the time? It’s RAYON.

All rayon is made by putting plant material in chemical soup, dissolving out everything but the cellulose, and turning the cellulose into filaments/fibers.

The source of the cellulose has zero effect on the eventual fabric.

Rayon made from bamboo or eucalyptus or seaweed is not any better than rayon from any other sources.

Don’t let companies mislead you!

[marsipain]

Norwegian Mikus :)

Left is Miku as a russ and right is Miku in a bunad!

[inlovewithmyhyperfixations]

james potter in low hanging sweatpants, no shirt on, and drying his hair while walking out of the bathroom:

regulus, who was practicing an invisibility spell and was going to take sirius's stuff: *chokes on air*

[crumb-crumblet-s-crumbington]

"You and me, Ethan. Together we go save Rose, and then we can grind Miranda into paste!"

[frownyalfred]

I'm seeing a lot of "ugh, so we can't even criticize fic authors anymore?" posts popping up on here and the ao3 subreddit and I just want to say, for the record: No one's saying you can't criticize (fanfic) authors publicly. They're saying it's rude and antithetical to positive fandom experience. And, yes there's a difference.

If this website was a conference and I had just spent a whole afternoon listening to a presentation on [unpopular fic trope] and after that was done, I got up on stage and very publicly told the audience that [unpopular fic trope] was illogical and anyone who writes it is woefully misinformed and should be banned from writing [relevant character], that would in fact be a dick move.

"But the canon character would never--" it doesn't matter. You're shouting down the hall at the person who just happily did a whole seminar on their OOC version of that character. "But I don't like that the author chose to make them--" good, you're well-acquainted with your likes and dislikes, time to find another fic.

We all run into fics and interpretations we don't like. But there's a huge difference between loudly talking about it on Tumblr where the author can see it, and just venting in a private discord or other group. Also, gentle reminder that this is a hobby for most writers and something they do purely because they enjoy it. Stop being massive dicks just because you feel entitled to a certain flavor of fanfiction you will probably be chasing until the Reformation of Krypton.

[addamii]

I got inspired by this post by @thatneoncrisis and I also wanted to draw butch Nona because butches can be silly goofy colorful too and let nobody ever tell you otherwise

[batbabydamian]

wondered when exactly Damian started casually chatting with his hallucinations of Alfred in Robin (2021)

figured isolating himself in a dark tower carrying pictures of Alfred and the weight of his death would do the trick! (Detective Comics (2016) #1032)

[lenalvthor]

hey i have a fucking bone to pick with sapphic fandoms

like, i get it okay. i've been on tumblr since 2011, i was in the trenches during the bury your gays nightmare, i grew up on buffy, i watched the 100, i've been through the furious and devastating queerbaits, and i've watched helplessly as the boom of proper progress with sapphic rep has burned and disappeared with the faults of the industry as it is rn and the resurgence of bury your gays in the form of tv cancellations

i even did a fucking guest lecture for a film & tv university course a couple years ago on all of this

we joke about the fact that queer (specifically sapphic) fans flock to any show with the barest hint of rep in it because we're so starved for it, and we talk about the fact that if nothing else, that proves that there's a market and an audience and it usually creates a huge wave of viewership and attention for the show

but i need to fucking point out: acting as though a show exists for the sole purpose of the sapphic relationship you've started watching it for is fucking detrimental to how you'll perceive the show, how it'll get talked about in fandom spaces and then beyond that (bc the line between fandom spaces and wider online discussion of media is a lot thinner than it was ten years ago) and isn't actually going to do any good for sapphic rep! like, at all! because guess what! unless you're watching a show where the entire storyline revolves around romance, this couple you're watching for ISN'T going to be the centre of the story! it's a part of it! and there's such a weird fucking entitled toxicity to how fans act around brilliant storytelling and worldbuilding and writing and characters throwing tantrums about not getting more screentime for the relationship they like because they don't actually care about any other part of the story. and the thing about people who watch something solely for a ship rather than the wider story it exists in, is that a lot of the time, you'll fundamentally misinterpret the characters and their dynamic because you're not taking any of the wider context of the world and story into account at all.

and yes, of course i'm talking about agatha all along in the immediacy. because we knew a long, long time ago that billy maximoff was gonna be an integral part of this story, long before we knew anything about what the vibe of this show was gonna be, long before anyone even had the tiniest whisper of rio's existence. the same way wandavision was monica rambeau's origin story even though the show was wanda's, we suspected that agatha all along would be billy's/wiccan's origin story even if the show focused on agatha. and you know fucking what. that's good fucking storytelling. this show is smart, it's funny, it's curious, it's campy, it's queer, and it's ensemble. that's always been the point. agatha and rio were a delightfully unexpected part of it that added such delicious tension and phenomenal sapphic rep, but you know what else! the point of that dynamic is to flesh out agatha's character! this show isn't about agatha and rio! it's about agatha and billy, who they are, how their pasts and their magic are connected, their traumas and their power and how the road shapes their futures! rio is a part of exploring agatha's past, and it's phenomenal, but i am so fucking bewildered by the ridiculousness of people's reactions to billy now having a bigger part in the story and there being less focus on agatha and rio. you do know that you write scenes and characters and stories in a way that makes sense right? that because of the nature of this show, even if we don't get more than a handful agatha and rio scenes for the rest of the episodes, they're both still sapphic characters, this is still wonderful sapphic rep, and this show is still very, very queer?

like, it's obviously not fair that we have to beg for scraps to have queer shows to watch. but that doesn't mean that any of us get to do such a fucking disservice to the people who make amazing shows and fight to put sapphic rep in them within the contexts of the stories they're telling by whining that it's not enough. what we're getting with agatha all along, what kathryn han and aubrey plaza and jac schaeffer have said with such grace and nuance and intrigue and depth about agatha and rio's relationship, is so fucking rare! and it's nestled within a story that's got so much other intricate storytelling that makes agatha and rio richer characters when you actually pay some fucking attention and care about who they are outside of their sexual tension!

and i'm saying this because this is an issue i see with So many other shows, where the worth of a show gets boiled down to fandoms wanting content of their ship and nothing else and then poisoning the conversation and reception around what else it is that show is doing with its story. idk get some fucking media literacy, grow up and respect artists and creatives.

[hajihiko]

💕

[yujateaandpi]

Oughh it’s 2:00 AM and I’m having Thoughts and Emotions about Marceline the Vampire Queen. Like— she’s a punk bisexual and cool as heck but she’s also a terribly sad immortal with mom issues and double dad issues BUT BUT ALL of her parental figures gave her unconditional love so strong that it fundamentally saved the human race. Marceline saved the humans who hated her because her demon dad passed on the legacy that helped her grow powerful and her mom sang her lullabies and her adopted father clung to every shred of his breaking mind to protect her childhood. She was so loved! She was so loved! And that love never went away it stayed inside her even when all three of her parents hurt her so badly that the pain stuck for a thousand years. And all of the ways they hurt her were BECAUSE they loved her, so Marceline never learned to differentiate what it meant to love someone and hurt someone. So she hurts the people she wants to protect, she’s rough with the people she wants gentleness from, she abandons the people she wants by her side. And so much of the show is her collapsing and falling apart because she can’t figure out why why her relationships are all so broken. And then little by little she gets closure with each chapter of trauma— with her demon father, with her mother’s memory, with dear Simon— which then allows her to finally be at peace with herself and accept love— pure as it is— and give it back.

[snarkspawn]

I really enjoy playing through tnp again like hi it's been a while

[exhausted-undead]

ah, young love (they will hate eachother at some point, pinkie promise)

[shivunin]

Because I have just seen this specific thing for the second time, I would like to say:

If I reblog your art, I do not expect you to reblog (or share!) my fic in return

If I comment on your fic, I do not expect you to comment on (or read!) mine in return

My enjoyment of anyone's work does not come with strings or expectations

My friendship is not a bill that you will have to pay later

That's it!

[luanna801]

Oh so when Nie Huaisang tricks a guy into stabbing his best friend to death it's ""justified revenge"" and ""very girlboss of him"" but when I, Xue Yang--