#I welcome good-faith questions and criticisms ofc but this is Not It

[beefscrap]

!!! DESIGN A STORY CHARACTER CONTEST !!!

Finally, it’s here! To celebrate 400 PLUS followers now, I’m hosting a WOF design challenge/contest! Your mission is to design a character that’s going to appear in TBoFS 2. The character is already decided, and you’ll be given information/prompts to design them. First place winner will have their design be the official design for the character, and anyone who doesn’t win can keep theirs! So keep in mind that if you win, I’ll be the ‘owner’ of your design and the character.

!!! GENERAL INFO !!!

- 1ST PLACE PRIZE: Your design will be the official design in the story! You also get a free dumb doodle from me of any OC (or character) you want.

- 2ND PLACE + 3RD PLACE: You’ll each receive a doodle, as well as being featured as winners when they’re announced! Of course!

- Anyone else who submits a design will get honorable mentions, and your design will be linked when winners are announced.

- Very little artistic bias is involved. Not being able to ‘draw well’ isn’t an issue, as long as you have good ideas and a good imagination!

- DESIGNS ARE DUE BY [ Friday, December 20th ] !!! I’ll have results by December 25th!

- I’ll personally be picking the top 3, then put a poll up that lasts for 1 DAY. This will determine the winners.

- TO SUBMIT YOUR DESIGN: Either tag me in a post or send in my asks inbox! I will be reblogging/posting with the hashtag #TBOFS2DESIGNCHALLENGE (and you can post with the tag too ofc!)

- Please ask questions if you have them!

!!! RULES !!!

- I have faith in people but PLEASE BE NICE! I don’t want fighting for any reason, I don’t want unwanted criticism of people’s designs, etc. I want this to be enjoyable for EVERYONE, even if you don’t win!

- You may only submit ONE DESIGN! If there’s some sort of issue where you need to resubmit, just let me know!

- Another reminder that the first place winner gives me ownership of the design, and I’ll put them up on my Toyhouse folder. Please don’t submit to win if you’re uncomfortable with this!

- I have faith about this too, but just in case: don’t submit inappropriate art. If I find out you draw gross feral art/sexualize dragons I won’t accept your design and you’re blocked.

- Similarly, no design you submit should be offensive or hateful in any way.

!!! DESIGN INFO !!! finally the fun stuff

- The character is a PURE NIGHTWING.

- I prefer to stick to MOSTLY canon color choices, but some deviation from this is welcome! Ask if you aren’t sure, but feel free to look at the character designs in my TBoFS Toyhouse folder. That should give a good idea.

- Adding accessories and even little headcanons for the character are fully welcomed and encouraged (keeping in mind that some headcanons may not end up to be true, lol!)

- Name ideas are welcome, too!

- YOUR GENERAL PROMPT IS: a snobby, intelligent, standoffish Nightwing who does not believe in animus magic as it exists.

- Keeping my prompt pretty vague so you can have fun! The best designs (to me) are ones that’re recognizable. Not necessarily jam packed with accessories and colors and stuff… just recognizable.

- Your designs may be sketched, lined, etc, but my main requirements are that it’s at least a fullbody + colored. You CAN add more visuals to the design if you want (front face view, mouth view, paws, wing view, etc etc). It does NOT have to be digital!

Woo hoo! Have fun and thank you again for your support!

[aronarchy]

and dont you Dare call yourself a communist but be "pro sex work" for fucks sake

Anti-anti-sex, anti-work, for a slightly more precise version.

[ninakaina]

sorry to bother you with this if you have already addressed it, but I couldn’t find such a thing and didn’t want to assume your intentions. You said you dont demand that people stop shipping BurDa, you just want the ship to be seen more critically, which I believe (unless that has changed ofc) But I’m struggling to understand how this statement works with believing that it is inherently racist? Surely if that’s the case people should stop completely? Regardless of answer, thank you for Ur posts!

don’t worry about it! i’m sorry actually, i’m having trouble connecting concepts and putting thoughts together tonight, so this will probably be a little disjointed. 

it’s kind of a complex subject! my purpose in making those disclaimers is to make my posts as accessible as possible to my audience, whoever that might be. to be clear, i’m NOT saying my way of doing things is right or the only right way or that people have to “be nice” about their opinions, this is just how i choose to go about this conversation. but i do want to be nice when i can (eg. i don’t make problems on random people’s burakhovsky posts* or talk about specific users i disagree with unless they have spoken directly to or about me or they’re big well known racists like threi), and i want to make it as easy as possible for well-meaning people to start thinking and talking more critically about things they like. i think that there are some people who have been able to learn something useful from my posts who wouldn’t have if i had said “if you like burakhovsky/burda, stop it or block me”. i would personally rather encourage people to think and talk about it critically, and i know it sucks to see even valid condemnations of the things you like so i want to remind people i’m not attacking them. i obviously don’t like that it’s shipped at all, but... point number 2:

i don’t feel comfortable saying that it Should Not Be Liked as a rule / demand / universal statement. a lot of things are inherently racist. most things are inherently racist. again, please don’t take what i say in this post as my assertions of how anyone else should be acting because this is my very specific and uncertain personal choice. i wouldn’t argue with someone who said everyone should stop, and i don’t argue with my mutuals who enjoy it critically. i’m pretty good at making connections between concepts (normally) but making moral or authoritative judgements about them is something i’m a lot less confident about, believe it or not. like, the ask i just got about the stamatins: i can tell you some things i find interesting about them, i could do some analysis that might make someone think about them in a new way, i can tell you they’re racist, but when asked how i feel about them or if it’s ok to like them i’m at a loss. i thought for a long time about “why it’s ok” for me to like maria and i’m still not completely confident in my answers. “is this racist?” “is this a harmful trope?” are different questions than “are its elements so racist and harmful that it can never be liked or engaged with without being part of the harm?” that is a complicated question with a lot of variables, and i am very fallible, and i don’t feel educated or experienced enough to tell you not to like something, period. 

one of the reasons for this is i don’t know what’s going on in the heads of people who like it. i don’t know every single shipper’s heritage, experiences, conclusions, or reasoning. i never saw anything between them so i clearly don’t see what a lot of people see, and i don’t know how it’s handled when it is handled critically-- i don’t consume burakhovsky content when i can avoid it (i have it blacklisted on tumblr and don’t read fics) because it very easily can become upsetting for me due to my personal experiences. like tweets about me, i only find out what’s going on with burakhovsky content when friends or followers show it to me. and again, i don’t know how you think about it in your mind. my conclusion is that it is racist and harmful enough that i personally should not like or engage with it. when i ask people to think critically about it, i want them to come to their own conclusion on that matter for themselves, personally.

* where i draw the line and start getting assertive is when you create and publish content that is harmful. when you are creating content, even fan content, even analysis, it’s no longer a matter of “enjoying things”, it’s a matter of actions and decisions which can affect others. which is why i say racist tropes/themes in fanfiction and fanart and discussion should be addressed and why i really appreciate creators who make space for good faith criticism and acknowledge their fallibility. this is also where my footnote for the “not making a stink on other people’s posts” comes in-- as i’ve said before, if you see offensive content being made, you’re welcome to ask me to address it directly on your behalf. i appreciate all the people who have held me accountable throughout my life, even when sometimes it took me a while to come around.

i hope this made a little bit of sense! in conclusion it’s a matter of my intention in the posts i make, which is to start a conversation and offer a new perspective, a matter of establishing my respect for well-meaning people with lives and thoughts i don’t know,  and a matter of the complexity of ethical judgements and my own insecurities about whether my feelings are right or good or real.