#but learn to take criticism of it ok)

[tea-cat-arts]

Madam Yu defenders will be like "Madam Yu was a complex person with a tragic life and though none of that excuses her actions, it does explain them so please stop reducing to her to a monster and a caricature of an evil woman" and her haters will respond "so you condone child abuse"

[kindlythevoid]

Me, upon receiving one (1) SORTA mean, maybe-off comment out of hundreds of super nice comments that I love, now staring for even MORE hours at the draft of the next chapter I need to write: Well, fuck. Now what? Also Me, .02 seconds later, gritting my teeth and strategizing: Well, I write this fanfic for me. This is my fanfic. People can think what they like. I will take this comment and use it to think of new ways to improve my writing, but I will not internalize it. I write this fanfic for me. This is my fanfic. People can think what they like. I will take this comment and use it to think of new ways to improve my writing, but I will not internalize it. I write this fanfic for ME. This is MY fanfic. People can think what they like--

[crescentfool]

beaming everyone on the dashh with good brain day vibes!!! i hope that you all can remember to extend self-compassion to yourself whenever you're feeling down about something 💙

[tinkerbitch69]

The worst part of being trans on an English course is listening to people give Harry Potter a verbal tongue bath cuz it’s an ‘amazing and well crafted piece of literature’ prefaced of course by a completely vapid ‘fuck JK Rowling’ to show they are in fact… An AllyTM

But if you dissent from the popular opinion of 20 somethings who stubbornly refuse to move on from their childhood obsession or take off their nostalgia glasses and you dare to argue that actually on just about every level Harry Potter is kind of boring, uninventive and thoroughly uncompelling as anything other than indulgent wish fulfilment?

Then they look at you like you just spat in their face.

Anyway Fuck JKR AND Harry Potter! No death of the authoring your way out of this one 😒

[aromanticannibal]

The pattern is that people straight up do not read™. or they read a 3-5 tweet summary of what happened and treat it as if they did. or because shonen expectations based on "the classics" is bullshit and significantly rotted people's brains when deciding wether an ending is good or not.

Which could be nothing right

yeahhh. i will forever regret reading the last chapter through leaks because it was a dreadful experience, and watching everyone ever shit on it for like a week after genuinely made me want to just get off the internet forever or something because i felt like an idiot for liking the ending (all this is my fault for getting too invested in both tumblr and mha etc etc).

All the "it's rushed" and pacing complaints barely matter to me at this point because you just cannot feel the pacing of something correctly when you're reading it exclusively through leaks. you can't absorb info like that. And don't get me started on the number of complaints and criticisms I've seen of the last chapter that are just provably bullshit (I saw someone say Izuku didn't get a statue lmao. yes he did, you just read the fucking leaks and watched twitter drama unfold instead of reading the actual chapter i fear).

[swordmaid]

for me… FOR ME..!!! and for shri’iia specifically the lock in for astarion’s romance is his graveyard scene in act 3.

i think it is too quick for shri’iia to be moving on to another relationship considering her previous one was with her mistress who essentially groomed and isolated her for like … more than hundred years. learning to chase her own desires and not moulding herself to what anyone wants her to be is something so new to her…!!! and something that she’s still learning how to be comfortable with….

and what I like abt romancing astarion with her is that I usually go for the dialogue path in his act 2 confession scene where you can ask him:

- what do YOU want to do?

and he goes like honestly idk what we’re doing but /this/ is nice. it just feels like two people exploring the option to love for the first time and taking things in their own pace rather than jumping straight into the relationship. they’re going at a snails pace… they don’t know what they’re doing but they like this feeling and the vibe and they want to more of it but they’re not ready to commit to anything yet and it’s fine for them …!! and they’re only committing by the end in the graveyard scene where significant time has passed and they’ve learnt a little more about themselves and they’re both more confident about their own desires and also how they want to be loved.

like it is so fitting I think… and sweet… not to mention astarion being a high elf & a vampire and shri’iia being a drow, they have all the time of the world for themselves so I def think they would want to take their time. except if shri’iia turns into a mindflayer or drider by the end then that plan is out the window lol

[borbealis]

i've decided that i literally don't care about anyone else's opinion contrary to my own because i think Nora Sakavic did a pretty good job (actually a really good job) writing aftg and i will never not love that series no matter what hate people shit on it

[alazysnail]

Im gonna be cringe and post something I wrote from 9pm-12am at night based on that lovejoy/los campesinos song. Be aware as I slowly lose my head as it gets closer to 12am. All of this was written on a whim from a shower thought of mine.

Knee deep at the (my) ATP (APT)

The meet was so sudden.

Just the average drunken girl you'd see at the bar, yakking her mouth off with her friends.

Just the average drunken guy, hollering loudly with his pals.

The moment of eyes crossing & making meet.

The common social occurrence, it happens to everyone at least once in life. The normal response would be to just turn away & awkwardly act like nothing happened, trying to show it wasn't intentional.. Yet… For a moment too long, we stared, and I could feel the rise of my chest, inflating like a balloon, lifting me. You seemed to feel it slightly too, or at least, the rubber caught you at your throat. A choak stammered from you. A light flush on your face.

Earth decides to draw back its gravity, and the gal swipes her head back to her friend group, gazing back one last time to snatch a look of me before fully returning to her blethering friends.

The balloon in my chest seems to pop, suddenly, and I am drawn back to mine. One is looking at me, a corner of his lip being tugged.

“Golds caught your eye, Los?” He simpers.

“Josh,” I grouse under my breath, covering my face with my hand as I feel my cheeks start to warm. He just laughs to himself. Ezra just looks at us, confused. She looks at Josh's K-Records tee. Usually we both banter at each other over whos a better artist from that industry. Still confused, as she's noticed I didn't take this moment to further banter with Josh, she leans over towards Josh to further inquiry.

I turn my head over, trying to advert eye contact with them, only to spot that girl again, murmuring to her friends as she looked at me. She saw me peering, jumping in her seat a bit, almost tipping herself over, before turning away again. She verbalizes something to her friends, supposedly trying to seem casual. They just playfully laugh at her.

“‘Ey,” Ezra taps my shoulder. “I think she likes you.”

“Mm? And what makes you say that?” I pester further. She just rolls her eyes. Josh tries to choke back a laugh. “Well, she's walking towards you now.” She points over my shoulder.

And there you are, beauty and grace, as you make your way through the drunken crowd.

“Hey, uhm,” You stammer. “I'm Atare. You?”

From there, fate.

On the first day after, we were already sitting it off. So many dates & walks & talks. Every second I could feel myself falling deeper and deeper.

It wasn't long before we called it official. We were hanging out so much you'd think we were a married couple in a shared house.

Of course, in any relationship, we had our ups and downs here and there, but over all, we worked them out pretty well!

We were like a match made in heaven.

You were an angel.

And to think I would find myself here, slouched over, not on you, but my apartment door.

Heat was flaring my face as I fumbled with my pocket, trying to fish my keys. With each buzz that formed from the other, the more I wanted to just kick the door down.

I felt the loop of the keychain slide onto my finger, and snagged it out. I hurriedly flipped through the keys until, getting more feverous as the buzzing continued. I now hear how disheveled I sound. I sound like an overworked dog, begging its owner for some water.

My neighbors must think i'm sick, or insane, or maybe they don't care. I could care less right now too.

I finally got to the one with the green padded bow. I promptly slid it into the keyhole and turned the knob, pushing myself inside, slamming the door behind me.

A buzz. I toss my bag to the side.

A buzz. I'm yanking my coat off. I'm practically panting at this point. I truly am some dog.

A buzz. ‘Gosh, get myself together. Im rolling in my head like a mad man.’

I step to my bathroom real quick, starting up the sink. I toss some water on my face, trying to focus on my breathing.

In the mirror, I could see my sweat-matted hair, blood-shot eyes. I couldn't even tell which droplets were sweat, water, or tears. At this point they were all the same.

“Jeez..” I take some deep breaths, or as deep as I can hold them. I cough in-between some, but I get a hold of myself.

Another buzz alarms me once more. I push myself from the hung-over position on the sink and pull my phone from my pocket. I switch it on.

A notification, many actually, but it's all from Josh. I open them, and read them, and read, and read on.

Breaths were muttered, but all choked on. I feel a pinch at my lip, realizing I've been unconsciously biting at it. I wipe it with the back side of my hand, noticing a small smear of blood come with it as I pull away. “Gosh..”

I can feel the fingers on the back of my phone gripping tighter, like parenthesis, like the whispers of lies she's been feeding me. Something outside of the narrative.

-”She's been trying to keep it a secret from you, well, both of us I guess. She didn't want to hurt you. She was looking for a time to let you down more gently, but I guess it's too late for that now.”

It was obvious he was taking his time with it, grammatically checking each phrase. It wasn't like I pulled out my phone fast, and yet, it only made me feel worse. I could feel my heart sink to my gut as I continued to read further. That's all there was really left to do.

I hear a small crinkle hit the floor. I look over and see a small film paper next to my coat I had slung across the floor. Begrudgingly, I go over to look at it.

It was one of the photos she said got messed up in the printing process. Apparently, some guy sold her a broken Polaroid, so all the photos were pretty much blurred or unexposed. She gave me this one because it was the most clear of them. It was an image of our hands held together. Resentfully, I decided to look closer at this fallacy. It seemed so perfect.

Directly in the middle, the film stood pretty much clear. Hand in hand, blaring out. Everything still standing.

I looked closer and noticed the background, thought not quite exposed, seemed quite discoloured. She claimed we took this photo at the street show, but the ground seemed rather… yellow? No.. it wasn't concrete, it was sand. We've never gone to the beach before. I peer even further into the photo. Just barely, you can see a t-shirt. There was a logo on it, shaped almost like a shield, and a letter sits inside of it. The shirt looked like it belonged to K-Records.

I guess now, it slightly makes more sense why on that night she had so much sand falling from her insoles, chewing on your cheek every time it happened. She claimed she just went wandering out at the beach by herself the other day.

I thought it was cute.

She was always very mysterious.

I remember looking into her eyes. My heart felt so full. To see her smile and grin.

And as her grin loosend, so she could look me in the eyes, I noticed something felt off. Your smile seemed to be wanting to tell something warm and fuzzy, but your eyes, just for the second I got to see them, seemed to scream a different story, before you turned away to continue walking.

I now hear the words they cry.

I now know I am simply the B-side.

(Epic meltdown rahh im so angry RAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH bang bang clash punching my pillow omg ugh le flop on bed RRRHGHGGHHHHHHHHHH)

“Not what ya’ like, it's what you're like as a person.” I mockingly parrot. “Heh..”

I've got to find other things to absorb my time, or I'm just going to drown in this mess.

That's one thing for certain.

[softceleste]

I am begging people who don’t know what they’re talking about to just shut the fuck up about the strike instead of spreading misinformation because you doing that is actually WAY WORSE then you just saying literally nothing.

[snekdood]

Idrc if you wanna find the politics in every piece of media you consume but personally i dont really care to all the time like idk. Like idk sometimes i just wanna enjoy shit w/o constantly thinking about the underlying politics or whatever? Sometimes its hard to ignore if its super rw based but still, a lot of other shit i just feel like im investing more energy into this shit than was intended for most ppl like idk. The underlying political implications of spirited away. Idk i just dont really care lol

[aquarri]

It said MANY of the tattoos are nautical NOT all. Let's see if you can explain what a pyramid has to do with the sea and sailing. I'll wait.

where is you’re reading comprehension. the implications of picking those tattoo designs from a sheet that is HEAVILY focused and centered around the nautical theme. dumbass. please get off the internet and touch grass.

[la-principessa-nuova]

I made a support request with a vendor asking if there’s a way to leverage the logic they already have for determining what counts as a business day (it is very critical that this is done exactly correctly and that it never breaks in the future if nobody is maintaining it) when using their API since I didn’t want to have to maintain a separate source of truth for it, and in their response they said:

it is not too hard to do date/timestamp arithmetic

which any developer who has done date/time arithmetic knows is the understatement of the century

Famously everyone thinks so until they take down an important system by forgetting about DST, or leap years, or that leap years don’t happen every 100 years, or that they do happen every 400 years, or not considering implications of people using different calendar systems, even if they’re just slightly different like having weeks start on a different day, or they consider whether the first week of the month is the first full week or the partial week before that, or they format it in a different order.

Then when they finally think, “OK, but I know about that,” then they learn about the leap second, or the negative leap second.

So yes, date math is “too hard”.

[spencerreidsreads]

He didn’t have to say it

Aaron Hotchner x gn!reader

Summary: So immersed in your painting, you forget to take a break to stretch your legs. Aaron helps out with the pain that comes from it.

Genre: Hurt/comfort, mainly fluff!!

Word count: 1.7k

*based on THIS request*

AN: Hi! I’ve never written fanfiction of any sort in my life before, but I really wanted to give it a go. I’d love to know what you think, including any criticisms (I don’t mind criticism, I want to learn how to get better) If you enjoy please like, reblog and comment! If even anyone enjoys this piece it would encourage me to try again. Thank you so much

*also this is not proof read - I’m too embarrassed to go through it again. So please let me know if there are any mistakes!*

꘎♡━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ♡꘎

A flowing river of blue, the smell off wildflowers blowing in the breeze, and the chirping of birds flying overhead. And then… pain? No longer were you in a calm meadow garden, outside of a homey cottage. Instead you are sat alone, inside of your art room, suddenly aware of the pain in your legs.

You had been so immersed in finishing the last details of the painting you had started weeks ago, that you had lost track of time. You had been staring at it so intently, trying to look for flaws to perfect, it had almost felt like you were there. You hadn’t been at home just then, you were transported into your work of art relaxed and undisturbed within the canvas.

It was light outside when you began working. You remembered hearing the sound of people strolling the streets and children playing in the nearby park. Now however, the sky was beginning to darken and the streets were almost silent, other than the sound of the odd car driving past. The outside world was proof enough that you had been sat too long, without a single break to stretch your legs.

Had you not been so wrapped up in your painting, you would’ve remembered to take a walk or go for a snack to prevent the intense pain you were currently feeling. Aaron always reminded you to do so.

Speaking of Aaron, you desperately hoped he would be home soon, you knew the pain would only intensify once you started moving around, and you wanted nothing more than for him to be there to comfort you. He was so wonderfully helpful when you needed comfort. He was your rock and no matter how you were feeling, he always managed to make you feel somewhat better. He had researched the best ways to reduce the pain you often felt and despite how tired he may be from work, he always made the time to make sure you were safe and content.

Stretching out a paint speckled arm, you reached for your phone prepared to text Aaron to see if he would be home soon, he was due back to his evening. But once again he proved to be the best husband you could ask for, as not even a second after grabbing your phone, you heard the front door opening. Perfect timing.

The sound of the door shutting quietly, a bag hitting the ground and the locks of the door being set, you knew it was your husband finally back from the week long case he had been on with the team.

“Sweetheart?” his voice was soft and carried some tiredness with it, you knew this had been a tough case for him and immediately felt guilty for wanting his comfort and attention when he had only just returned home. You knew how hard he worked and didn’t want to burden him. So instead you decided you would greet your husband and try your best to hide the pain as not to worry him. Though with a skilled profiler as a husband, you knew this was wishful thinking.

When you went to stand, you hissed as an intense pain shot through your knees, causing them to buckle. Luckily, Aaron had come in search of you, having not heard a reply when he called out for you. Just as you were about to fall back to the ground you had previously been occupying, you immediately felt arms wrap around your frame, engulfed in the scent of your husbands cologne.

“Hey, take your time. It’s ok let me help you”. There goes your plan of hiding the pain. Aaron immediately knew what was wrong and slowly supported you to stand. Once you were fully elevated he wrapped his arms around you in a tight embrace, holding most of your weight off of your knees. Despite the fact that Aaron repeatedly told you to stretch your legs to prevent this from happening, he wasn’t going to lecture you. You were in pain and he just wanted to bring you comfort, so he didn’t say anything. He just held you close and softly began to play with your hair the way that you liked.

The mixture of love you felt from Aaron’s care and the pain you were feeling in your legs caused tears to appear in your waterline. Aaron immediately shifted into gear, wanting to reduce the pain as much as possible, “how about we take a little walk hm? Just around the apartment. Give your legs a chance to stretch and I’ll tell you all about how much I missed you while I was gone?” You smiled and nodded in response through the tears. He always knew how to make you feel better.

Aaron didn’t rush you, he didn’t leave you to take care of yourself. Instead he lovingly wrapped an arm around your waist and let you set the pace as you walked out of your art room and into the kitchen. Though this caused the pain to intensify, you knew that in the long run it would help. So as you grimaced and slowly treaded through the pain, Aaron kept to his word and informed you of how awful it was to be away from you for the week. You laughed as he mentioned that he was caught looking at the picture of you he kept in his wallet by Morgan and he was teased by the team for the rest of the case. He told you that instead of ordering his original coffee from the coffee shop near the precinct, he ordered your favourite drink. It was too sweet for him and didn’t wake him up as much as he liked, but it made him feel closer to you.

As you approached the front door on your walk, near where he’d left his bag, Aaron reached inside and hid his hands behind his back, something grasped tightly in his fist.

“After we wrapped up the case I saw these in a store window and they made me think of you. One for me and one for you”. Aaron brought his hand in front of you both and opened it, revealing 2 key rings that looked to be a matching pair. One of them was a key shape, and the other a locket. You knew these weren’t the kind of thing Aaron cared for at all, in fact he found them extremely cheesy. But he knew you loved small things like this and just wanted to see you smile.

And smile you did. You looked from the keyrings in Aaron’s large hand, then back up to his eyes, a large grin on your face. You couldn’t believe the reputation Aaron had at work as the stoic grouchy boss. How could anyone describe this man (who was currently staring at you with a soft smile on his face and some tacky keyrings in his hand) as anything other than perfect? That’s what he was to you. Perfect. He was always thinking of you and you could not be more grateful.

“I love them” you whispered, Aaron didn’t respond, he just looked lovingly into your eyes and continued along with you on your walk to the living room. At this point, whilst your legs still ached, you found it hard not to focus on how happy you were with your partner. It was hard not to be happy around him. Your tears had eased up and had instead been replaced with a loving stare directed at your husband.

Once you had done a lap of the apartment, Aaron suggested a bath together to soothe your joints, which you quickly agreed to. He sat you on the side of the bathtub as he messed with the taps and added some bubbles, just the way you liked it. Once the bath was ready he held your hand and helped you in, slipping in himself afterwards, your back leaning against his chest. Not many words were exchanged, they didn’t need to be. You both knew exactly what you wanted to say ‘I love you so much’, ‘thank you for loving me’, ‘I’m so grateful to have you in my life’. Instead, Aaron softly hummed as he gently scrubbed away the paint from your body and placed soothing kisses along the back of your neck. You felt so safe and at home here within his arms.

Once the water began to turn cold, you and Aaron stepped out of the bathtub and he wrapped a towel around you.

“Your painting looked beautiful by the way” he whispered as you both prepared to brush your teeth and get settled for bed.

Despite being together for 7 years, he still made you feel giddy with his compliments. Turning to face him, a small thank you passed your lips. He was always so supportive of whatever hobby you picked up and loved to shower you in the compliments he believed you so deeply deserved.

The two of you soon got settled into bed and Aaron wrapped you into his arms, “how are you feeling honey? Any better?” he questioned.

Placing a soft kiss to his bare chest, you sighed in sleepy contentment before nodding your head. “You always make me feel better.”

“I just wish I was here more often for you” Aaron sighed. You knew he felt guilt about leaving you alone whilst he went away with the team, but even if he wasn’t with you, you rarely felt alone. Even at his busiest, he made time, even for something as small as an ‘I love you’ text or a ‘have a good day’ message.

“You’re perfect for me Aaron, please don’t doubt that. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me” you sleepily replied, meaning every word. He gazed at your tired face and drooping eyes and saw that you were on the verge of sleep. Aaron swore he’d never seen anything so beautiful in his life. He felt so overwhelmed with love that he felt emotional. Pulling you closer, he placed a soft goodnight kiss against your lips. “I love you sweetheart”, but you had already drifted off.

But even though you didn’t hear it, that didn’t matter. He didn’t have to say it. You knew. You’d never felt more loved in your life, Aaron loved you and he never let you forget it.

[ohnoitstbskyen]

Hi Skyen, hope you're well! I'm seeking some advice and since you used to work doing mainly art commissions I figured asking you was worth a shot.

I'm a furry artist and I'm looking into doing commission work as a side gig while I finish animation college, and hopefully acquire enough experience/clients/notoriety to turn it into a full time job once I graduate.

Do you have any advice for someone literally just starting out with fresh accounts and zero following? Especially when it comes to reaching people and getting your first clients, and anything that one should take into account when working with NSFW specifically. Also advice for pricing your work is always useful 😅

No need to answer obvs but I'd appreciate your viewpoint if you want to share!

Got 2 asks on this exact subject so I'll write up what advice I can. One big caveat: I haven't worked as a commission artist for like half a decade at this point, and this job has a tendency to change fast, do not take anything I say as gospel. This is advice from a limited perspective, be critical of what I say and trust your peers and the people you are in community with before you trust me.

building audience

Step one is getting people to notice the artwork you create. Literally nothing else can happen until you have eyeballs on your work, and the most consistent and reliable way to make that happen is fanart. Ideally you'd want to produce fanart in a fandom you are personally engaged with and passionate about and familiar with, and which also has a sizeable community whose attention can help you build recognition and a base of followers.

This isn't always possible, and there's many a working artist who creates work for fandoms not out of deep personal connection, but because the fandom is large and relevant and a good way to capture the goodwill of algorithms and content feeds.

This approach has some downsides. For one, genuine fans can usually tell when someone's engagement with Their Thing is shallow, and for another it can be deeply creatively exhausting to chase the algorithm. I don't recommend this approach, but it is a valid means of building a business.

Another important consideration, especially when you are early in your career, is that volume tends to trump quality. Every artist will eventually learn that their shitty joke-doodle they sh*t out in ten minutes on a whim will get a billion reposts, and their complex personal work that took eight weeks to finish gets 2 likes from their closest mutuals and a comment from a bot saying "wow!"

In the age of the algorithm, what machines and for you pages value is a consistent, high-volume of output that generates user engagement. You will generally get further, faster, by producing a lot of work than you will producing great work. Again, this can be rough on your mental state, and a fast way to burn the fuck out, so please be careful and mind your health before all else.

The best way to build something that will last is to build your audience in communities and around fandoms and themes and ideas you genuinely care about and enjoy exploring and interacting with. Being your authentic self and creating work from your authentic interest is generally both healthier and long-term better for your career than trend-chasing. Treat trend-chasing and volume > quality output as tools in your toolbox, as creative and business decisions you can make to achieve a specific purpose, never ever EVER let them become the center of your praxis or your philosophy. Never ever EVER allow the Numbers™ to be your source of validation and accomplishment.

building business

Ok, so you've got eyes on your work. You've got some followers. How the hell do you get them to commission you?

Well, again, by demonstrating a capacity to create kinds of art for which there is demand. In the furry community, there's brisk trade in things like ref sheets and character design, for example. For most fandoms, ship art is a product which tends to be in demand. Being able to do really good expression sheets is a marketable skill. Being able to create compelling and clear emotes for streamers and creators is a marketable skill.

Showing the capacity to work in a wide range of styles is valuable. Showing the capacity to work in a wide range of genres is valuable. If you can do both comedy and romance your appeal expands. If you can do shonen-like action and angst as well, it expands again.

Equally, being incredibly good at a specific niche is valuable as well. Focusing hard on an under-served niche of work can give you a lot of opportunities to be the Go To person for that specific kind of thing.

Perhaps the hardest part of all of this is marketing yourself. Not only showing that you have the skills, but actively informing your audience that you are available, eager and willing to practise your skill for a fee. You have to sell yourself. It sucks, but you have to do it. You have to advertise what you can do, and you have to suffer the rejection and annoyance that comes along with doing that.

You have to ask people to commission you. You have to raise your hand and demand attention. It's not fun, but it's business.

Walking the line between self-promotion and being a person is hard. I can't help you that much with it, it's a very personal balance to find. Stay in touch with your soul, but kill the part that cringes at yourself.

Ultimately, you best marketing asset is your portfolio. Every time you do work, show it off. Repost it, retweet it, spread it around. If someone is happy with what you've made for them, do your best to make sure that other people see that happiness. Ask your clients (politely) to tag you when they share your work.

Oh, and for the love of god, sign everything you create, slap watermarks on anything that's likely to get reposted, and make it impossible for someone not to find your business email on your profile.

building network

If you're a commission artist, you are in community with other commission artists. You share interests, you share experiences, you share needs.

Practise solidarity. Absolutely seek out professional peers to help your business, but equally seek out opportunities to help them with theirs. If someone comes to you for art and you don't have commission slots open, point them at a colleague who you know can do the work too. Gas up your peers and spread their work.

Be a symbiote, not a parasite. Respect the craft of your peers, and don't chase celebrities and big names in the hope of coasting on their coattails. It will fail.

smut

If you're a working artist, at some point you have to reckon with smut and r34.

These genres are excellent sources of income, and fertile ground to build a business and network of customers. BUT. Do not ever make the mistake of thinking that they are "the easy way" or a shortcut. Do not ever make the mistake of thinking you can simply offer to draw tiddies and rake in the cash.

It's work and graft same as literally any other form of labor, it's challenging on both a technical and creative level, and the audience can sense if you're looking down on them. If you approach this from a position of shame, of "eugh, I'm debasing myself by doing this for rent money," it will not work, and you will lose standing and respect in the eyes of every peer whose support you need to succeed.

Just as in all other forms of creativity, if you treat the audience as morons who will slurp up whatever slop you serve them, then you will attract clientele that agrees with you, and you will deserve the misery they will inflict upon you.

If you are going to work in smut, establish your boundaries and enforce them. Know that good clients will feel safer and more comfortable with an artist who clearly states their red lines and earnest interests than they will with someone who tries to attract more clients by pretending to be open to work that they are actually uncomfortable with.

Never, ever, EVER let a client push you to create work you are not comfortable creating. It scars your soul in both the short and long term.

Also, when working with this kind of content, know the rules of payment processors and know how to hide the nature of your business from them. PayPal should never, EVER know the details of the content you sell with their service. Frankly, neither should your bank, most likely.

Look to your peers for advice and best practises about this. And be meticulous about your bookkeeping.

money

I want to tell you to charge at least minimum wage for your time. I want to tell you to charge substantially more than that, because your labor is specialized and highly skilled.

But the economic reality of commission work is that there is a crushing downwards pressure on the labor price of art, which has only been made more devastating by the rise of generative AI, and especially when you are a young artist just starting out, you're going to find yourself in a position where charging even minimum wage for your time will turn away a huge proportion of your potential customers.

Again, your portfolio will be the greatest argument for the value of your work, but you have to build that portfolio first, and very often that means doing a f*kton of work for not remotely enough pay until the pressure of demand finally works in your favor.

I don't condone or justify this state of affairs. It is horrid and I hate it, but I don't know how to fix it either.

Making a living from content creation of any kind requires you to get lucky, on top of working obscene hours and foregoing rest and vacations. It's not a safe or sensible plan for a career or paying your bills.

My sensible advice is to get a "normal" job you can survive doing, and do your creative work on the side, and resign yourself to the possibility that the creative work may never actually pay your bills.

And that is soul-crushing, but I cannot stomach pretending that hard work and gumption will guarantee anyone a decent living if they just try hard enough.

There are people who are better at every aspect of my work than I am, and they struggle harder and work for longer, and they will never see half the success I have, because I happened to get lucky, and they happened not to. It's wretched.

I'm not telling you not to chase your dreams. I'm telling you to do it with your eyes open, and with compassion for yourself first before all else.

All of this to say: I can't tell you what to charge for your work. It depends on everything from your competition to your niche to your genre to your community to your economic situation. You have to figure it out on your own.

All I can tell you is never forget that your work is worth more than the market will let you charge, and to raise your prices as soon and as much as you can. Try to reach at least minimum wage for your time as fast as possible.

in conclusion

Again, I haven't been a commission artist full time for a long time, please do not take any of this as gospel. Listen to your peers before you listen to me.

But trust me about the solidarity. It will save you when all else fails.

[fursasaida]

Hi! Just wanted to ask. How can I give my students assignments that are chat-gpt proof? Or that they won't just copy the answer without at least doing some editing?

Hi! So, I don't think anything is ChatGPT-proof. You fundamentally cannot stop people from using it to take a shortcut. You can't even stop them from copying the answer without editing it. However, I think you can work with this reality. So, you can do three things:

Don't be a cop about it.

If you make your objective "stop the children from using the thing to cheat," you are focusing on the wrong thing. You will be constantly scrutinizing every submission with suspicion, you will be accusing people of cheating--and some of them will not have cheated, and they will remember this forever--and you will be aiming at enforcement (which is trying to hold back the sea) instead of on inviting and supporting learning whenever and wherever possible. (I'll come back to this under item 2.)

Regarding why enforcement is holding back the sea: It is fundamentally rational for them to do this. We, who "love learning" (i.e. are good at what our academic system sees as learning, for various reasons have built our lives around that, happen to enjoy these activities), see everything they might cheat themselves of by doing it, because we know what we got out of doing this type of work. Many students, however--especially at the kind of school I teach at--are there to get the piece of paper that might, if they're lucky, allow them access to a relatively livable and stable income. The things that are wrong with this fact are structural and nothing to do with students' failings as people, or (tfuh) laziness, or whatever. We cannot make this not true (we can certainly try to push against it in certain ways, but that only goes so far). More pragmatically, chatgpt and similar are going to keep getting better, and detecting them is going to get harder, and your relationships with your students will be further and further damaged as you are forced to hound them more, suspect them more, falsely accuse more people, while also looking like an idiot because plenty of them will get away with it. A productive classroom requires trust. The trust goes both ways. Being a cop about this will destroy it in both directions.

So the first thing you have to do is really, truly accept that some of them are going to use it and you are not always going to know when they do. And when I say accept this, I mean you actually need to be ok with it. I find it helps to remember that the fact that a bot can produce writing to a standard that makes teachers worry means we have been teaching people to be shitty writers. I don't know that so much is lost if we devalue the 5-paragraph SAT essay and its brethren.

So the reason my policy is to say it's ok to use chatgpt or similar as long as you tell me so and give me some thinking about what you got from using it is that a) I am dropping the charade that we don't all know what's going on and thereby making it (pedagogical term) chill; b) I am modeling/suggesting that if you use it, it's a good idea to be critical about what it tells you (which I desperately want everyone to know in general, not just my students in a classroom); c) I am providing an invitation to learn from using chatgpt, rather than avoid learning by using it. Plenty of them won't take me up on that. That's fine (see item 3 below).

So ok, we have at least established the goal of coming at it from acceptance. Then what do you do at that point?

Think about what is unique to your class and your students and build assignments around that.

Assignments, of course, don't have to be simply "what did Author mean by Term" or "list the significant thingies." A prof I used to TA under gave students the option of interviewing a family member or friend about their experiences with public housing in the week we taught public housing. Someone I know who teaches a college biology class has an illustration-based assignment to draw in the artsier students who are in her class against their will. I used to have an extra-credit question that asked them to pick anything in the city that they thought might be some kind of clue about the past in that place, do some research about it, and tell me what they found out and how. (And that's how I learned how Canal St. got its name! Learning something you didn't know from a student's work is one of the greatest feelings there is.) One prompt I intend to use in this class will be something to the effect of, "Do you own anything--a t-shirt, a mug, a phone case--that has the outline of your city, state, or country on it? Why? How did you get it, and what does having this item with this symbol on it mean to you? Whether you personally have one or not, why do you think so many people own items like this?" (This is for political geography week, if anyone's wondering.)

These are all things that target students' personal interests and capabilities, the environments they live in, and their relationships within their communities. Chatgpt can fake that stuff, but not very well. My advisor intends to use prompts that refer directly to things he said in class or conversations that were had in class, rather than to a given reading, in hopes that that will also make it harder for chatgpt to fake well because it won't have the context. The more your class is designed around the specific institution you teach at and student body you serve, the easier that is to do. (Obviously, how possible that is is going to vary based on what you're teaching. When I taught Urban Studies using the city we all lived in as the example all through the semester, it was so easy to make everything very tailored to the students I had in that class that semester. That's not the same--or it doesn't work the same way--if you're teaching Shakespeare. But I know someone who performs monologues from the plays in class and has his students direct him and give him notes as a way of drawing them into the speech and its niceties of meaning. Chatgpt is never going to know what stage directions were given in that room. There are possibilities.) This is all, I guess, a long way of saying that you'll have a better time constructing assignments chatgpt will be bad at if you view your class as a particular situation, occurring only once (these people, this year), which is a situation that has the purpose of encouraging thought--rather than as an information-transfer mechanism. Of course information transfer happens, but that is not what I and my students are doing together here.

Now, they absolutely can plug this type of prompt into chatgpt. I've tried it myself. I asked it to give me a personal essay about the political geography prompt and a critical personal essay about the same thing. (I recommend doing this with your own prospective assignments! See what they'd get and whether it's something you'd grade highly. If it is, then change either the goal of the assignment or at least the prompt.) Both of them were decent if you are grading the miserable 5-paragraph essay. Both of them were garbage if you are looking for evidence of a person turning their attention for the first time to something they have taken for granted all their lives. Chatgpt has neither personality nor experiences, so it makes incredibly vague, general statements in the first person that are dull as dishwater and simply do not engage with what the prompt is really asking for. I already graded on "tell me what you think of this/how this relates to your life" in addition to "did you understand the reading," because what I care about is whether they're thinking. So students absolutely can and will plug that prompt into chatgpt and simply c/p the output. They just won't get high marks for it.

If they're fine with not getting high marks, then okay. For a lot of them this is an elective they're taking essentially at random to get that piece of paper; I'm not gonna knock the hustle, and (see item 1) I couldn't stop them if I wanted to. What I can do is try to make class time engaging, build relationships with them that make them feel good about telling me their thoughts, and present them with a variety of assignments that create opportunities for different strengths, points of interest, and ways into the material, in hopes of hooking as many different people in as many different ways as I can.

This brings me back to what I said about inviting learning. Because I have never yet in my life taught a course that was for people majoring in the subject, I long ago accepted that I cannot get everyone to engage with every concept, subject, or idea (or even most of them). All I can do is invite them to get interested in the thing at hand in every class, in every assignment, in every choice of reading, in every question I ask them. How frequently each person accepts these invitations (and which ones) is going to vary hugely. But I also accept that people often need to be invited more than once, and even if they don't want to go through the door I'm holding open for them right now, the fact that they were invited this time might make it more likely for them to go through it the next time it comes up, or the time after that. I'll never know what will come of all of these invitations, and that's great, actually. I don't want to make them care about everything I care about, or know everything I know. All I want is to offer them new ways to be curious.

Therefore: if they use chatgpt to refuse an invitation this week, fine. That would probably have happened anyway in a lot of cases even without chatgpt. But, just as before, I can snag some of those people's attention on one part of this module in class tomorrow. Some of them I'll get next time with a different type of assignment. Some of them I'll hook for a moment with a joke. I don't take the times that doesn't happen as failures. But the times that it does are all wins that are not diminished by the times it doesn't.

Actually try to think of ways to use chatgpt to promote learning.

I DREAM of the day I'm teaching something where it makes sense to have students edit an AI-written text. Editing is an incredible way to get better at writing. I could generate one in class and we could do it all together. I could give them a prompt, ask them to feed it into chatgpt, and ask them to turn in both what they got and some notes on how they think it could be better. I could give them a pretty traditional "In Text, Author says Thing. What did Author mean by that?" prompt, have them get an answer from chatgpt, and then ask them to fact-check it. Etc. All of these get them thinking about written communication and, incidentally, demonstrate the tool's limitations.

I'm sure there are and will be tons of much more creative ideas for how to incorporate chatgpt rather than fight it. (Once upon a time, the idea of letting students use calculators in math class was also scandalous to many teachers.) I have some geography-specific ideas for how to use image generation as well. When it comes specifically to teaching, I think it's a waste of time for us to be handwringing instead of applying ourselves to this question. I am well aware of the political and ethical problems with chatgpt, and that's something to discuss with, probably, more advanced students in a seminar setting. But we won't (per item 1) get very far simply insisting that Thing Bad and Thing Stupid. So how do we use it to invite learning? That's the question I'm interested in.

Finally, because tangential to your question: I think there's nothing wrong with bringing back more in-class writing and even oral exams (along with take-home assignments that appeal to strengths and interests other than expository writing as mentioned above). These assessments play to different strengths than written take-homes. For some students, that means they'll be harder or scarier; by the same token, for other students they'll be easier and more confidence-building. (Plus, "being able to think on your feet" is also a very good ~real-world skill~ to teach.) In the spirit of trying to offer as many ways in as possible, I think that kind of diversification in assignments is a perfectly good idea.

[nortsauce]

I got a banger ace attorney au for y’all AGAIN: A TWIST on your average ROYAL!AU

ok so basically 👏

Royalty au where everything is the same but phoenix has been trying to figure himself out bc he's with a traveling minstrel show with acting and puppets etc. never rlly knows his real fam

the travelers are sent to perform for king gregory edgeworth and his family, as well as the von karmas and the feys while they talk about diplomatic procedures in the kingdom of japanifornia. (idk wip name for the kingdom i hate this game /j)

i think Larry is a peasant or like a runaway from a rich noble who stole some [object] (not on purpose) from the king by joining phoenix's band bc phoenix was like "ur so funny bro u shud join us!"

but unfortuneately phoenix gets accused of stealing bc larry happened to steal [insert smth here] of miles edgeworth the prince. the band abandons phoenix to get beheaded/punished (idk i might just make it public humiliation bc it would be funny if he just had to apologize but idk its medieval he could be getting his hand cut off for stealing or smth) except larry who stays behind to try and help his bro.

but before everyone can suggest a punishment, miles (and eventually larry) defends phoenix. and the rest is history.

phoenix and larry then decide to live in the castle bc gregory was like "that was so sweet aww u guys can stay here"

so yay yippee friendship hooray!

but then gregory edgeworth is assassinated and no one knows how it happened. Miles belives its his fault (i'll figure out why later) larry and phoenix are kicked out of the castle and the feys take them in.

phoenix and larry live in kurain for a bit and have fun but feen misses miles and so does larry but he's not as insane lol

then phoenix gets into trouble with a witch (Dahlia) and Mia Fey, a runaway princess of kurain turned fighter/knight/Rebellion leader, rescues him! YAY MIA! (Godot is her right hand man, Lana is the royal guard so forbidden love on every end yay)

so being inspired; he decides to become a knight to the von karmas to get into the castle and see miles and save him from whatever fate has befallen him and the kingdom bc the kingdom is slowly going to shit since Greg’s death.

BUT THEN! When he becomes a Knight, he learns that Edgeworth and The Von Karmas are complete ASSHOLES.

No matter what Phoenix does, nothing gets through to Miles and Mia is like “We told u so, bro :/“

(MVK is the royal advisor who is disney villain evil)

So! Upon finding out that von karma/miles edgeworth are tyrants, phoenix doesn't feel right serving the kingdom in that way, especially after mia is murdered as well and the new princess, Maya is to be executed for her murder.

so phoenix drops being a knight and he becomes the only person who can possibly stand up to king miles:

Phoenix becomes the COURT JESTER!

Court Jesters weren’t just there to make people/the king laugh, they also had an obligation to the people and to the king to point out any flaws within the way they rule the kingdom. They were basically tasked with critiquing / criticizing the way the rulers of the kingdom rule the kingdom through the guise of humor.

And also like. C’mon. The pun is RIGHT THERE. /COURT/ JESTER. also it’s just fun to make fun of phoenix wright