#This isn't meant to be a Gotcha I'm just genuinely curious
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Y'know something I'd like to try and see is how the anti-AO3, "don't pay them money if we can't make money off our fics" crowd feels about the rising use of sweatshop labor to produce bootlegs for fan artist merch. Legality aside, if the motivation is that fan artists deserve to be able to make money, what are the boundaries of their morality in the effort preserve that ability?
Of course, wording it the way I do makes it seem rather obvious, but it's become so normalized at this point I don't think people even consider where a lot of fan artist merch comes from anymore. Because like at least 70% of the time it isn't artists anymore.
#Stupid shit#This isn't meant to be a Gotcha I'm just genuinely curious#I'm well aware there's rampant hypocrisy in this crowd but I wanna know how deep it goes#Anyways this is why I'll always stubbornly be looking for any way possible to make my merch in-house. Even if it takes a lot of time.
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this is a genuine question not at all meant as a rude gotcha, but I feel like I've seen lots of people cite the relatively low barrier of entry as a huge advantage of podcasts as a medium, "if you have access to decent audio tech you can make a podcast" etc etc. So where does the need to sell a script come in? Is it a financial thing, and IP thing, something else?
this doesn't read like a rude gotcha at all, it's a really good question! there is a much lower barrier to entry when it comes to podcasts compared to tv, film, theater, etc. (though not as low as writing a book if we're talking about hard resources - you can technically write a book with just a laptop and a dream and then self publish! though as a writer who has written a lot of scripts and four books (3 published) writing a book is a much bigger psychological burden imo lol).
the need to sell a script, for me, is entirely a financial thing. if I had the money to produce podcasts at the level I want to entirely independently, I would! I know how to do it! but, unfortunately, I really only have the funds to produce something like @breakerwhiskey - a single narrator daily podcast that I make entirely on my own.
and that show is actually a great example of just how low the barrier is: I actually record the whole thing on a CB radio I got off of ebay for 30 bucks, my editing software is $50/month (I do a lot of editing, so this is an expense that isn't just for that show) and there are no hosting costs for it. the only thing it truly costs me is time and effort.
not every show I want to make is single narrator. a lot of the shows I've made involve large casts, full sound design, other writers, studio recording, scoring, and sometimes full cast albums (my first show, The Bright Sessions had all of those). I've worked on shows that have had budgets of 100 dollars and worked on shows that cost nearly half a million dollars. if anyone is curious about the nitty gritty of budgets, I made a huge amount of public, free resources about making audio drama earlier this year that has example budgets in these ranges!
back in the beginning of my career, I asked actors to work for free or sound designers to work for a tiny fee, because I was doing it all for free and we were all starting out. I don't like doing that anymore. so even if I'm making a show with only a few actors and a single sound designer...well, if you want an experienced sound designer and to pay everyone fairly (which I do!), it's going to cost you at least a few thousand dollars. when you're already writing something for free, it can be hard to justify spending that kind of money. I've sound designed in the past - and will be doing so again in the near future for another indie show of mine - but I'm not very good at it. that's usually the biggest expense that I want to have covered by an outside budget.
but if I'm being really honest, I want to be paid to write! while I do a lot of things - direct, produce, act, consult, etc. - writing is my main love and I want it to be the majority of my income. I'm really fortunate to be a full-time creative and I still do a lot of work independently for no money, but when I have a show that would be too expensive to produce on my own, ideally I want someone else footing the bill and paying me to write the scripts.
I love that audio fiction has the low barrier to entry it does, because I think hobbyists are incredible - it is a beautiful and generous thing to provide your labor freely to something creative and then share it with the world - but the barrier to being a professional audio drama writer is certainly higher. I'm very lucky to already be there, but, as every creative will tell you, even after you've had several successes and established yourself in the field, it can still be hard to make a living!
anyway, I hope this answers your question! I love talking about this stuff, so if anyone else is curious about this kind of thing, please ask away.
#lauren writes things#audio fiction#producing#also I say I don't like doing it anymore#but that's exactly what briggon andrew and I are working on#it's gonna be a show where we just split profits equally bc I can't afford to pay them lol#and I'll be sound designing it myself#so apologies in advance#also my GOD lauren can you be succinct once in your GODDAMN LIFE#why are all my posts so long i'm so sorry#also I don't get into it in this post#but using my book example as a jumping off point#obviously it is MUCH more complicated than that#bc self publishing/promoting/etc.#and writing the book in the first place!#is an ENORMOUS effort#as is making an audio drama!#also the grand irony in this#is that the show i was referencing in my original post is a show i first came up with to do independently lol#a two person show for briggon and andrew in fact#and then I happened to mention it to some producers I know and they liked it#so that's a show I COULD make for no money!#but they want to pitch it out and there's no harm in asking around#and in the meantime i just came up with another show for briggon and andrew haha#lauren answers things
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On one of your older fics there's a tag that's like "if you interpret my doomsday trio as romantic i'll kill you myself" and I'm really curious about how you went from that to shipping them. This ask isn't meant to be like a "gotcha!! you're a hypocrite!!" type thing, I'm genuinely really curious about how you view shipping + your own writing process. is it that you'd prefer doomsday trio to only read as platonic in that one fic? if so, why?
thanks for pointing it out, i thought i deleted all the tags like that. i went back & deleted it as well. it was on prisoner symptoms, but there were some on my other early fics as well, like one-two-three.
if i'm being honest, i saw a lot of people get hate for shipping (esp with techno's character) and i was very nervous. i write a lot of intimate scenes, and at the time i did intend them to be platonic. mostly because i thought i'd be crucified if i thought otherwise. i was just pretty new to the fandom at the time and i thought that was just What The People Here Did.
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U r such a bitch. Can't believe you stabbed dainty in the back and harassed him
I'm gonna give him the benefit of the doubt and assume you're just coming here of your own accord. I doubt he'd send people to bother me.
That being said. I didn't do anything. I knew that someone was bothering him and had dead-named him, but he never told me who. It was just some random anon that appeared in my inbox one day, which I ended up either blocking or deleting that anon. I believed him that it was just some idiot because I've had the same issues of people trying to cancel me.
As for harassing him....you mean the TWO comments I left asking to talk to him. Yes, I will fully admit that I should've let it go, but I was curious. He was still following me at the time on Twitter, so I took that as a sign. Plus, I was mildly panicked. Not even the first time I've done something like that. Maybe I need to think it through more.
But yeah, that was it. The only other messages I have of him is him saying that we talked in the past, while he was under a different name. Idk, maybe we did. I have a crappy memory.
Other than that post that got put on Twitter, I have not done anything else to Dainty. I only went to that person because they seemed to have a bit more knowledge than I. People making those kinds of posts don't automatically make them a stalker. Hell, if that were the case, then the shit that I had with Trick and 6c6 was "stalking". Besides, I only went there because of the behavior he gave me was written somewhere in one of those claims, as well as having similar experiences.
Here's the post if you're curious.
Is it wrong that I talked to someone else and allowed them to post those screenshots? Maybe, but I did my best to talk this out with Dainty. He immediately assumed that I had made that post about him, even though MANY MANY people use the same words, practically the same sentences. It's understandable for his reaction, but I said it wasn't what he thought. Yet he still blocked me. Plus, this isn't the first time he has talked over me, while being upset with me. Unfortunately, I dont have screenshots of that moment, so take it with a grain of salt if you must.
Anyone who follows me knows that I don't go out of the way to make enemies or make "gotcha" posts unless deserved. None of what was said was meant to upset him nor was the wording even vaguely directed toward him.
I'm not gonna sit here and make it seem like I'm some "victim" because I am a little guilty of fucking up. However, I also don't appreciate him unblocking me, just to leave 14 messages of guilt-tripping and trauma-dumping....and then block me again. Like, again, maybe I shouldn't have just easily allowed something like that to be published, but it's just something that didn't feel right to me.
If you wish to unfollow and/or block me, you are freely allowed. Just please know that I genuinely, genuinely (even now) mean no harm. Whatever prerogative that Beep person has, does not align with my thinking. I just wanted to bring out that ONE thing because, in my eyes, it did feel wrong. (Again, i know two wrongs don't make a right).
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@adinafay "I would personally feel icky about that shirt, because of the lore and the inherent negativity that knowledge imparts to them. I also can't imagine someone I would like as a person wanting such a shirt or tattoo. That said, I do currently agree that it's not an objective problem and people can be allowed to do whatever tf they want since it's not actually hurting any person or people." So, you pretty clearly think it is morally wrong to wear such a shirt or have such a tattoo, since you couldn't imagine even associating with the kind of person who would consider doing so, which makes the overall question I'm asking with this post aimed at you: what is it about it that's morally questionable? This isn't a "gotcha" thing or any kind of judgement either way, I'm asking completely earnestly because clearly you and others feel very strongly about this but you only said it was because of the "inherent negativity". What does that mean, in the sense of the morality of question? Is it really just "I know that this character was hurt by getting these and I feel sad because I like that character/I imagine those who would want this shirt must dislike the character or want him to be hurt and that makes me sad as a fan of that character"? Or "within the canon, these were done by a bad person and therefore creating or owning an item that represents them makes one similar to the bad person in the canon"? Or is it "because, to that character, these were traumatic, they are, themselves, symbolic of trauma and abuse, and therefore immoral to use as decoration"? Follow up to that, would you feel a tattoo of his vampire bites, assuming one could somehow make it clear they were his and not a generic vampire, were equally immoral? Since they are much more directly tied to his abuse? Once again, I stress this isn't meant to be snippy or "gotcha" or me asking this rhetorically or mockingly. I legitimately want to know what the thought process behind the feeling here is but I'm autistic and often come across as being really sarcastic or passive aggressive when I'm trying to just be genuinely curious.
I saw a post on my dash of someone being like...really upset by the idea of a shirt that had Astarion's infernal pact runes on the back. And not just in a "I feel sad/I wouldn't wear this" way but an actual "this is immoral to own or wear" way and expressing similar feelings to people getting any part of it tattooed on oneself and I'm confused as to what the reasoning is there.
I ask this as a completely earnest question: what is the problem with wearing or otherwise having on your body his pact scar markings? As far as I can figure, it's not directly analogous to anything outside the realm of pure fantasy. They're not slave markings or an identification marker that could be considered analogous to holocaust serial numbers. They aren't directly tied to his sexual trauma outside of being inflicted by the same person. They're a devil's pact in a fictional set of letters. So far as I can think of, that's not directly analogous to anything in real life so as to be offensive to portray in a non-serious manner. Sure, for the character of Astarion they're associated with his trauma but the character of Astarion isn't a real person who can be hurt. I guess, in theory, you could say that, since they are associated with his trauma and other people in real life have experienced similar trauma, they might be upset by seeing it. But by that logic, portraying his vampire fangs or his red eyes would be equally if not more problematic, as his vampirism is far more directly tied to his trauma and history of abuse than his scars, which are solely to do with the infernal pact. That's not to say there isn't a glaring problem with them I'm just not seeing, though, so if anyone is more privy to the issues here than me, let me know.
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Not an anti, but I was curious. Wasn't there a screenshot where Dream was talking about how the legal age of consent is 16 in the UK and how he called his fans "kittens" at some point in a tweet? Like I said, I'm not an anti, I watch his manhunts often, but it worries me that there's no context to those screenshots
Even if you're being good faith here, you are repeating gotchas that were made by people operating solely in bad faith. If I come across as overly harsh or mean, I apologize but I'm beyond frustrated with this shit. First off, there's a mountain of context for both of those screenshots, easily found with a Google search. Feels disingenuous to say there isn't. The age of consent comment was less than 3 seconds and typed in Minecraft chat, he wasn't genuinely saying anything about a 16 yr old having sex with an adult and the majority of people who lost their shit over this knew that. Here's the original poster of the tweet that blew up admitting to it:
The "kittens" comment is completely fucking ridiculous because it wasn't sexual by any stretch of the imagination. Here's the original tweet and then subsiquent explanation:
If you interpret a YouTuber saying he cares about his fans in the same way he cares about kittens to be sexual, that says a lot more about you than it does him tbh. Now, the crux of the issue for me here is this is in response to my post saying we shouldn't be calling Dream an abuser or a predator without explicit character tags so no one can misinterpret what's being said and you saw that post and sent this in response. My post was saying it's dangerous to imply and mix messages just because someone plays an abusive character in Minecraft roleplay. Maybe you thought these two fairly innocuous moments actually implied Dream is abusing kids, in which case let me assure you- they don't. Either way, the implication here is pretty clear to me, Dream is an abuser and his character is evidence of that. Whether that's what you meant or not is irrelevant, that's what this implies. Quite frankly, I'm incredibly disgusted that so many people are willing to not just accuse and/or imply someone is a child predator with zero evidence or reasonable suspicion but also water down these words so they fail to have meaning. Its particular frustrating to level these pointless accusations and implications against Dream considering he has had his home swatted because the people who doxxed him accused him of keeping children in his basement. It's a smear campaign and you are feeding into it.
I want to believe you are acting in good faith and that you're genuinely concerned but you are so quick to repeat talking points that are manufactured and that you admit you didn't have context for. These accusations exist because people baselessly hate a 22 year old Minecraft YouTuber for zero fucking reason. If they had a reason, they wouldn't be using this wishy washy bullshit.
#Ask#What the fuck is this is where I'm at#Like how can you see my other post and then go but wait! What about those two out of context screenshots#Ugh ya know?#Let me know if I need to tag anything#discourse#root talks
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