#popular sell

[shakil3dclothshop]

Hi all

[plush0fairy]

Wisconsin-ae-Miku

Have to give credit to @thedragonitus for that Culver's cup!

[tippenfunkaport]

That viral post that's going around about how people who write "book quality" mlm fic are too "normal" to publish and have real jobs so only "weird" people publish their "shitty" fanfic is so completely out of touch with reality and I am giving a massive side eye to everyone reblogging it.

Not only is it completely, easily verifiably untrue (you cannot enter any professional writing space without tripping over a dozen grizzled scifi writers who got their start by filing off the serial numbers and publishing their Star Trek fanfic even going back decades ago??? it's a whole thing?? plus how can you look at the mlm category on Amazon right now and say with a straight face that people aren't publishing shitty Spirk and Stucky fanfic??? Oh, honey...) it's also the perfect example of this kind of sneering elitism that true artists would never sully themselves by seeking profit, they do it only for the purity of the thing that always somehow leads back to, "no one should be paid to make art, actually."

The only reason you're seeing more published fanfic right now has nothing to do with the idealistic purity of your hypothetical government employee written smut of the past vs the debased scribbles of those awful straights of today and everything to do with the fact that a) self-publishing has created a voracious readership that wants a ton of content so it's become a viable, flexible income stream for many, especially disabled people b) anyone can publish now with self-publishing tools so there are less gatekeepers and c) lockdown got a lot of people into fandom and therefore writing who never tried it before.

And if you really think there's no "shitty" published mlm and no "book-quality" m/f writing out there that started as fanfic, then you are clearly not a reader so why are you even talking about this?

[uldren-sov]

You used to be so sweet | Now you're a firecracker on a crowded street Couldn't look away even if I wanted | Try to walk away but I come back to the start

(Was very lucky once again to comm the bestie @aevari tysm!!!) a NON-meme of these two??? it's more likely than you think it had to happen eventually have to keep everything in balance: a happy past with a not-so-happy present :)

✮Starring✮ Seven Lawless from @infamous-if and my OC, Camy Rose

[20001541]

there's this poster advertising a convention in japan and they have afo in the top right corner holding yoichi's hand

here he is zoomed in along with the full poster below

[lemonhemlock]

I did not get into Game of thrones when it first started airing. In fact, I waited until it was long past it's heyday (around s6 or 7) to check it out because the marketing and the conversation surrounding it misled me into thinking it was nothing more than "grimdark" bullshit. As one famous YouTuber sarcastically called it "hot fantasy that fucks." So, I avoided Martin's work for literal years due to the impression that I got from online reactors and show-only casuals who did as you and a few others have described as his work being fundamentally misinterpreted.

Fortunately, I overcame my hang-ups, purchased the books (even the supplementary material) and fell down an entire rabbit hole of ASOIAF which led me to recognizing that this world he spent decades creating is far more complex than what had been portrayed onscreen. Regardless of the possibility of the books remaining unfinished (which I am fine with, personally), what George has created is a genuine work of art that I imagine took a tremendous amount of time and energy. So, for so many people online to behave like children and throw tantrums because they feel entitled to him (ew) instead of ushering forth more reasonable conversations and legitimate debates about the nature of his situation frankly makes me look at this fandom with a heavy dose of skepticism.

It is truly baffling to hear even professional critics and see articles describing George as being "ungrateful" or "unprofessional" when it has been well-documented just how often authors get locked out of the adaptation process and left to the wayside as consultants. Look at what happened to Rick Riordan and Christopher Paolini! George R.R. Martin is not the only author to have qualms with how a multimillion dollar studio has mishandled his creative work, and to act like he should remain silent just because he's amassed a certain degree of wealth is quite frankly, ridiculous. He shouldn't have to settle down, be grateful, and stay quiet because the greedy corporate executives and their media drones will get offended by actual criticism that could alter the perception of the adaption being revealed as mediocre for having departed from the source material.

TLDR: authors should be allowed to speak up about their art being sacrificed for commercialization.

Thank you so much for this message, anon! This needs to be talked about more, because I don't think a lot of commentators truly understand the vulgar, late-capitalistic sheen that seems to set in and slowly poison any ASOIAF adaptation. It honestly baffles me how quick some members of this fandom are to rush to the defense of, what is essentially (let's not be kidding ourselves here), a cashgrab by a giant corporation to the detriment of the actual artist and the actual creative foundation behind it.

Why else would "MAX" (if that is even their name) make another (or several other) ASOIAF adaptations? Not to stay true to any philosophical aesthetic vision, as it has become more than apparent with Season 2, but to increase shareholder profits by appealing to the lowest common denominator. Even the basic premise has been shifted in order to address popular trends and satisfy the mindless consumer that doesn't want to engage with anything deeper than their favourite tropes, prettily packaged:

from a story about a doomed ouroborous family superimposed on the pitfalls of feudalism, with villainy and heroism to be found on both sides, it has been simplified and reduced to a narrative that exalts white feminism and disqualifies anyone who opposes its girlboss protagonist. This is Sheryl Sandberg's version of Fire and Blood.

Truly, I think Sara Hess did (unintentionally) outline it the best: "civilians don't matter in Game of Thrones". They don't matter in Game of Thrones, but they matter in A Song of Ice and Fire. The entire heart of the series is contained in Septon Maribald's speech. The writers "kind of", must have forgotten, though.

[chaikajpeg]

visiting an art con and leaving without a single piece of merch gave me more motivation to draw than anything for the past few months. i need people to know i'm insane about mahoyome. so i'm gonna make some pins. or acrylic charms. haven't decided yet. sweet lord i can't believe i finally picked up a pen!!!!!

[onmebackmush]

newsies tweets pt. 2... if you even care...

part 1 part 3

[thebirdmanhewatches]

I personally think this is flirting

[mxtxfanatic]

I don't remember where I have read this before, maybe it's in the tags of a post or something but someone once said something about Wei Wuxian fans being blinded by their "protagonist-colored glasses" and the context was them basically complaining that Wei Wuxian is overrated within the fandom and that X/Y/Z deserved better. That moment was just so wild to me honestly 😭 What even are "protagonist-colored glasses"? Were they saying that Wei Wuxian fans are deluding themselves into liking him? Weird.

Idk, people wanting to legitimize their hatred of a character through the text while using anything but the text as evidence to support their weird hatred will never not be corny and weirdo behavior. You hate that people love Wei Wuxian, the protagonist of the book about Wei Wuxian? The protagonist that is charming and funny and smart and strong and loves children and always sticks up for everyone wholeheartedly and is gay? You hate that people love that Wei Wuxian? Then go read a novel where the protagonist is a shithead, idk, I just know that you won’t find it from mxtx.

[duplicitywrites]

people forget that (most) authors don't write to be popular.

that is why constantly being asked to update is so immensely frustrating. authors are not influencers, this is not paid content where you have a justified say in what gets made.

commenting "update please" doesn't tell the author you care about them as a human person, it says you only care about the next update. that is quite literally all it says, regardless of the intention behind it. choosing to interpret it another way is just an interpretation, it doesn't change the actual meaning of this as a demand devoid of genuine desire for interaction.

like, what is the answer to that request even supposed to be? "yes okay"??? it's just entirely ridiculous, and i'm tired of being told this should be taken as a compliment. the level of communication involved here is the same as dealing with a five year old who wants more candy.

it is not a compliment, it doesn't make me feel like someone cares, it makes me feel like people only care what i can give them, which is fucked up to say the least.

if you want to leave a short encouraging comment, then put some emojis or just say you liked it. it's not hard to do, and it's not some complex social skill you need to have, it is very basic decency that everyone should be capable of.

authors aren't here to serve you updates. these are real people, not products, try to treat them as such.

[biblically-accurate-dca]

overanalyzing (nitpicking) these pins (under the cut)

sun's hanging pin: printing error on the ribbon on sun's right hand (yellow instead of red)

this has since been fixed but it's really funny LMAOOOO how did that happen

moon's hanging pin: the ribbons and the hat are going different directions in the artwork (moon's hat falls down but the ribbons don't, most likely because this is essentially just an edited version of sun's artwork)

this one's a little hard to explain. the colors for The Sun and the stars on sun's hanging pin share the same color palette as sun, but the colors of The Moon and stars on moon's pin don't relate to moon's color palette as easily. the star's are the same color as their teeth, but The Moon itself has it's own unique color. it's actually the clouds surrounding The Moon that share a color with moon (same color as their face)

this makes me think that the clouds were added for the sake of sharing colors from moon's face so it's like sun's? but idk that's just a theory lol. imo it's an odd choice to add clouds to it but it's honestly the prettiest part of the pin so i shouldn't complain too much i guess..

"sun and moon" hanging pin: this is obviously based off of eclipse so why are they calling it "sun and moon"? is it because it's not technically ruin eclipse and therefore they can't call it that? that's odd to me. maybe it's for a legal reason. who knows? i certainly don't

the pants don't have any stars even though the hat has them. and this was a purposeful choice. is it because it'd overcomplicate the design? is it a restriction required to make the pin? it's just an odd choice considering it's such a noticeably empty space now

all the dark parts that are meant to represent moon are a weird grey color now and it looks really odd to me. i'm guessing this is just to differentiate them but it's kind of ugly HFJSJGJD

their button's are blue? even though moon's aren't? why

the crators on The Moon on this pin are positioned slightly differently than the ones on moon's. i thought the design was just copy pasted onto this pin but i guess i was wrong? i'm not sure if this even means anything JDJSJFKDG

the bobble head pins: i think their poses are the same as the other's but they've been flipped and edited to differentiate them. this is probably a really obvious observation. regardless i do think it's fun when they parallel each other so i guess i can't complain about how cheap it feels HFJZJGK

there's a weird space between their arm and their ruffles? for sun it's on the left and for moon it's on the right but i can't really figure out why it's there... my guess is that it might've too hard to cut out since it's enclosed in the design, but it's too large of a space to hide it by coloring it in so they had to leave it like that. there's a space like that on the ribbons too so that's probably it. oh well, nothing's perfect

speaking of the ribbons: they're drawn differently between sun and moon! i thought it was just the hands that were changed but i guess the ribbons were too

moon's bobble pin: according to the art for the pin moon's secondary body color is supposed to be a dark blue, however it's so dark that it just looks black on the pin... it's probably more of an oversight than anything but i honestly think it looks kind of cool. i wanna draw it

i think moon's primary body color on the pin is honestly kind of ugly. the color on the art is ok even if it's a little dark but the cyan tint on the pin combined with how dark it is makes it look ugly to me

sun's bobble pin: sun's colors are... a little too yellow for my tastes but are otherwise fine. the colors on the art itself look nicer but i'm aware that the physical coloring doesn't always line up with digital color codes so you can't be too picky about it i guess

sun's secondary body color is technically incorrect (it should be the same secondary color as the face) but it does look nicer like this so just consider this as an observation rather than a complaint lol

the candy shaker pins: i dont have much to say about these (i think theyre nice but a little boring) but i do like how the designs for the bags match the time of day for each of them. the moondrops have a moon with stars and the sunnydrops have a sun with rays of light. it's charming

overall: they're cute i guess... but the fact that there's an entire collection of dca pins makes it so obvious who they're marketing to lmaooooo

[carlos-tk]

okay i’ll bite 👀 what’s a dunkin donuts

[crplpunkklavier]

idk. i read an article the other day about how the structure of pop songs is changing. how producers advise artists now to put the best part--choruses, hooks--right at the beginning, or at least within the first 30 seconds of the song, because otherwise people will scroll right past on tiktok and instagram.

idk. the same article explained that songs are getting shorter and shorter because you need people to loop you on spotify to make any money at all, and of course a 2 minute song is looped more than a 5 minute song, just sort of due to how time works.

idk. can i fault artists for wanting to make a living? but how dreadful to make art like this.

idk. i've always been a defender of pop music despite feeling at home in punk, because i don't think there's anything bad in humans sometimes wanting something simple, something easy to listen to, something immediately relatable. it's an idea that dates back all the way to romanticism. sometimes all we want is to dance and sing along and know that everyone everywhere feels heartbreak.

but idk! that's the consumer end of it. do we really want to be catered to like this? do we want to be presented with music that is cut and rearranged and bastardized and bastardized and bastardized all so it can catch our constantly waning attention? who needs to change first? one of us will have to.

and idk! the article somewhat nonchalantly ended by saying that "of course," there are some genres where people will still appreciate longer songs, "like rock and techno," as if rock artists aren't struggling to pay bills all the same.

idk, man. i'm old enough to remember hearing a song on the radio, or even fucking mtv, and going out the next day to buy the full album with my pocket money, just hoping it'll be as good as that one song. and if it wasn't, was that really so bad? i'd rip my favorites off the cd to burn my own mixtape, and then i'd sell the cd to someone else, for them to enjoy. but those were different times. sometimes i find artists that don't offer cds anymore at all.

idk. idk. i'm going to uninstall every app and handwrite a letter to sony to demand all songs be a minimum of 8 minutes long. figure it out.

[chaos-potat]

I'm trying to decide if I want to sell m art as stickers at festivals and events in my area, and soon even online but I need some data

The first thing I'm thinking of selling are these

I just don't know if it's a good idea to sell them individually or what

pls reblog for reach, I need to know ;-;

[arospecsyourblockdudes]

Shang Qinghua is one of the SV characters I can most relate to purely in terms of also being a writer. I know that a lot of the stuff I want to write won’t end up being super popular (a romance with a purposefully unsexy vampire? a story between an m/f best friend pair with a really deep emotional bond and no romance? come on) and publishing is a nightmare anyway. But the difference is that I don’t plan to make a living off my writing. Poor SQH does. So if he wants to do fun things like pay his bills and eat food every day, he has to pander to the big audience.

He’s written other things that weren’t PIDW. Things that weren’t trashy stallion novels. Things he might’ve had a passion for and put his heart into. No dice. So PIDW it is and my god I can’t imagine how annoying and frustrating it is that the one work that you purposefully sold out on so you can, yknow, survive, is the only one that got big. It got really big. Really popular. That’s gotta be so fucking enraging. Imagine that, you think sitting down to write something you like is hard? Try to pump out a few thousand words of some crap you don’t even like every day, crap that you know had potential if following your actual ideas and plans for the characters would allow you to pay rent. Alas. The characters you lovingly crafted are watered down now. No one cares that you came up with a really compelling backstory for this one villain, he did bad things and he got murdered and that’s all anyone wanted to see. Not a real story, not something you put love into

In a way I think that’s partly why he and SQQ became friends. I’m a writer, we like feedback. We like to hear what people think of the things we write, even negative feedback can be appreciated. So if you have this one guy who reads everything, comments frequently, and (most important) can see how absolutely shitty this work of yours is? Someone that also sees the wasted potential of this story? Gotta be worth something.