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nostalgic-pancakes · 4 years ago

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one day (i know that you will be there)

Summary: Here, have some fluffy transbur :D

Pairings: gen everyone, with a specific focus on crimeboys

Read on AO3

Word count: 2070

Warnings: None? I guess? Tell me if there are any, but I don’t see them

Other notes: Part of @noorahqar‘s BANGER discord server Pride Event!

Please DO NOT send this to the CC’s or even imply that this exists because No, Thank you

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Sometimes, it feels like it's okay. Nothing's wrong at all and in fact, Wilbur is happy.

Other times it feels like he's stuck in his own skin, a place he can't get out of.

Wilbur doesn't really know what's going on with his gender. He's always been cis, it's all he knows we it's his comfort zone. Even while his life was being wholly upended by YouTube, and Twitch and life in general, Wilbur's gender was always a constant- the one thing he never worried about or spent too much time on. It was his gender, and it was just kind of...there.

Sometimes when gender is part of the conversation, people display confusion when Wilbur talks about his gender like something separate from him that was tied on and is just there now, like a bit of hair that can never stay in place, but isn't necessarily a bother, either. But isn't gender like that for everyone?

Well, according to the one and only Tommyinnit, no.

"Well… for me, my gender is pretty malleable. It's more of a fucking... fucking abstract concept than a feeling? I'm a little detached from mine, but not as much as that, Wilbs."

"Then what is your gender like?" Wilbur asks. It's late on a Friday night, and Wilbur had ended up visiting Tommy's flat out of mostly impulse, living just under a kilometre away from his sibling these days. They're in the living room, splayed out on the floor talking about anything and everything in the dark, too quiet to wake Tubbo and Ranboo.

Wilbur’s not agender- he has a gender that he keeps around, even if it stays reasonably sectioned away from the rest of him.

Tommy hums, an older tune that Wilbur can't place as he fiddles around with some wool scraps ("Cabbages!" Tommy insists indignantly) leftover from the cardigan they had just finished when Wilbur walked in. It's a burgundy colour that's probably going to be matched with one of Tommy's longer cream skirts to University Monday morning.

"My gender is a… a kind of vibe? I guess? To me it feels like skirts doing that cool swoosh thing in the wind around you while you walk or eating Tubbo's chicken soup and that feeling I always got after a Dream SMP stream. It's weird, but that's my gender I guess." And that is weird. It's weird as fuck, but Tommy's gender sounds really fucking cool so Wilbur tries anyways. Tries to imagine what his gender, the amorphous entity that it is, feels like to him.

It's hard, at first, but then Wilbur starts humming. He's always done better with auditory concepts than visual or tactile ones, strumming tunes together that tie in with his latest hyperfixation.

So Wilbur hums. He starts with 'White Wine in a Wetherspoons' and then 'Cause for Concern' with a little bit of 'Your new Boyfriend' thrown in for posterity as it all starts to come together. Tommy starts tapping his finger on the plywood floor, creating a small beat.

His gender feels nice, actually, and not just the neutral burden that the universe has him carry around. It begins to feel like the warmth in Wilbur's chest when someone says "Hey, don't stop. Tell me more, this is interesting" to even the most niche fixations that Wilbur has ever had, like the different types of bricks or the historical fashion one he had at the same time as Tommy and they made dozens of Pinterest boards together (1830’s hairstyles his beloved). It feels like Phil calling him 'Son' in that chamomile accent, like everything will be fine. It feels like the tipsy laughs he and Niki share when getting drunk together and it sounds like the quick, comforting 'bzzt bzzt bzzt' of Tommy's sewing machine running on the other side of the flat while Wilbur makes them breakfast because they and his flatmates are fundamentally incapable of looking after themselves.

It's really a pretty nice gender, actually. So when Wilbur closes its metaphorical pouch and clips it back onto his metaphorical backpack, he feels lighter, warmer inside than before. Is this how Tommy feels sometimes?

The tapping stops and Wilbur realises that Tommy's fallen asleep, surrounded by scraps of cabbage on a fairly cold plywood floor. This will not do. Thankfully, Wilbur has gained enough arm strength to reasonably carry the nineteen-year-old to his bedroom, carefully avoiding sewing pins that Tommy will clean up frantically in the morning. Tubbo and Ranboo are asleep as before, in the same place, huddled together on the lowest bunk covered in blankets, with just enough room for another person.

Tommy fits in perfectly, head on Ranboo's shoulder and the rest of him swathed in blankets to protect from the cold. It's started to show fairly heavily outside so going home is not possible. Therefore, Wilbur stays.

The guest room still has some of his shit from the last time he stayed over, around a week ago. Piling a thick-ish duvet on top of himself, Wilbur sleeps, more at peace than he's ever been.

Monday morning, Wilbur tries out pronouns. He was spending the weekend in a bit of a haze of filming and social interaction and talking to Elodie, his editor, in order to have most of this week free.

He's back at home with pronoun dressing rooms loaded on Firefox, a Geoguessur stream finished and a free day with spoons to spare. It is time.

First- she/her.

This is Wilbur, the site reads, She's 27 years old with a penchant for making songs. She also really likes hanging out with her sibling, Tommy and her best friends on the Dream SMP. She still ships DNF.

Oh. Oh wow. She/Her works pretty well actually. Wilbur likes that for herself.

Next- they/them. This is not as nice, but it's also not bad, necessarily.

Fae/Faer- this one is pleasant enough.

Everything else is okay, Wilbur supposes. She figures that just knowing that he/him isn't the only answer is good enough for herself.

The first person she tells is Tommy, on a phone call during one of his frees.

“Okay, so he, she and fae, right?” they ask, rolling the pronouns around like the colorful hard candies sold in packets of two hundred each, muttering small sentences, barely audible to the phone mic amongst the dozens of student voices around him, pitter-pattering like sleet on cars heard from a cozy living room.

“Yeah. pronouns change by the day. Please don’t interchange them.” Wilbur confirms, short and soft.

“Oh that’s really fucking cool. What are they today? Does anyone else know? Do you have names you want to be called instead?” Tommy asks, orange-sweet in his kind concern and slowed down questions as to not deflate the souffle in Wilbur’s brain.

“Uh, she/her, and no, not yet on the knowing and the name thing. I’m going to tell Phil and Niki, then Dream, probably. Wish me luck.” Wilbur answers, the ‘wish me luck’ thrown in more as a formality than anything, but she’s still nervous, thoughts spinning in popcorn-crunch circles, pop pop pop about how it could go wrong and even if Tommy and Ranboo were accepted, perhaps that courtesy won’t be extended to her. Tommy, the absolute fucking legend as always seems to have figured that much out.

“Wil. Wilbur. Wilby. Big Dubs- It’s going to be fucking fine, you’re popcorn-popping again and while that’s one of your idiosyncrasies and I fucking love those, you are also freaking the fuck out. Everything will be fine, alright?”

“Idiosyncrasies? Where did you learn that? Is ‘The Tommyinnit’ learning new big words?” Wilbur teases, to mask her affection just a little bit, even as it seeps out of her voice like honey in a sopapilla, warm and sticky and sweet.

“Don’t fucking patronize me.” Tommy retorts, instinctive as it’s been for the past few years now, no bite behind their words. “I’ve got South Asian Lit now- call us in the evening?” he asks, because Tommy, Tubbo and Ranboo are a single unit in the evening. Do not attempt separation till after midnight. Wilbur laughs, a small thing only audible to her sibling over the phone.

“Course. You can tell them yourself, if you want.”

“Okay. Now I need to walk like, three buildings or some shit, so I’m hanging the fuck up. See you later?” Tommy’s voice is softer towards the end, cotton candy and Wilbur melts, just a little bit.

“Okay, bye Tommy.”

“Bye Wil. Good luck.” Tommy hangs up a few seconds later, the last thing on the line that Wilbur can hear being Ranboo’s steadily louder voice as end catches up to Tommy, and Wilbur keeps the phone to her ear for a few seconds more, before putting it on charge and loading up Discord, to find Phil and Dream on VC 3 together, Tubbo and Purpled occupying the beloved VC 2.

Wilbur joins the call, taking in a deep breath and letting it out, and taking a sip of lukewarm tea. Earl Grey, probably taken from the tea box Phil gifted her on Christmas and prepares herself.

“Ay, H’lo, son.”

“Hey, Wilbur!” Dream’s voice, chirpy and crisp as a freshly-picked apple registers first, just before Phil’s comforting chamomile and Wilbur is at ease very quickly, because it’s Dream and Phil. It is literally impossible for things to go wrong.

“Hi! I just came on here to tell you something.” Wilbur starts. After hearing noises of agreement, like popping candy, Wilbur starts.

“Um, so on Friday, Tommy and I did some soul-searching. Well, I did most of the searching. And uh, I figured out that I’m technically genderfluid, but my gender is a series of abstracts and I use he, she and fae pronouns.” It’s quiet for a second, before Phil responds.

“Hey, that’s pogchamp, mate. What pronouns are you using right now? Are they interchangeable?” Dream makes a noise in agreement, in questioning.

“Thanks, and uh, she/her, and no. not interchangeable. I use certain pronouns until I don’t.”

“Oh, that’s cool! Should I update your pronoun role in the Discord to ‘ask for pronouns’?” Dream finally says, and in typical Dream fashion, it’s by getting straight to business. It’s ridiculously endearing, even five years on, knowing everyone’s little quirks and idiosyncrasies (thanks Tommy for reminding her that the word exists) that it’s still possible to be endeared by them, and that they’re all still endeared to her.

“Yes please, Dream. Thank you. I’ll make a small announcement on the server myself, but thanks.”

“No problem, Wilbur! We’re glad you’re happy.”

“What the green-bitch said, mate.” Phil responds, and Dream turns on his camera for that only, just to show that he isn’t actually wearing green- he’s wearing a blue T-shirt, blonde hair mussed about enough to show that he did not comb it when he woke up. His face still has some sleep leftovers, but he’s awake enough to pay attention, and he’s smiling at Wilbur, mouse clicking very fast to change her discord role, and it shows up a few seconds later with a purple dot. ‘ask for my pronouns’. Wilbur is smiling like an idiot, and she turns on her camera, Phil following suit as she starts laughing a little wetly and all of this sinks in.

Wilbur is gender-fluid. She loves herself, her family and the little pouch still strapped to her backpack. Phil is whispering things into the mic soothingly and Dream is grinning at her, and it just feels so good. The bad feeling in Wilbur’s skin just isn’t here today, and it feels like it won’t be around for a while yet.

With slightly blurry eyes trying to see through her glasses, Wilbur makes an announcement with the @everyone turned on.

Bitchbur (she/her today): @everyone I’m here to announce that I’m genderfluid! You can either ask me my pronouns or I’ll just change my nick. The name’s still Wilbur. That’s about it.

Replies start coming in, nothing but messages of support and thumbs-up emoticons, and Wilber closes her eyes, leaning back in her chair, laughing a bit more. She’s so happy that she managed to accept herself, and find acceptance in everyone else on this server. She probably won’t come out to the internet for a while, or even to some of her real-life friends but that’s okay.

She’s got everything she needs right here.

#dream smp #mcyt #wilbur soot #tommyinnit #writers on tumblr #vee's writing #2021 #do not repost

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chariot313 · 5 years ago

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Western social media has no respect for Japanese online artists - and it’s killing online art

The visual arts have evolved to suit the most popular medium of each era. In nowadays’ case, the internet is the go-to method of sharing the fruits of one’s labour). However, as stated in that tweet thread of mine you can see if you scroll down a bit (assuming you’re viewing this post on chariot313.tumblr.com) different cultures have different attitudes towards how their customers react to their products. This include you know what fuck the formalities, I’ll just say it: The exclusively western concept of someone seeing something they like online and hitting the share button to stimulate the “Haha, upvotes go ‘brrr’!” dopamine in their smooth-ass lizard brain will be the death of online Japanese artists. Or rather, it has been already, and you would know that if you’ve ever seen an artist’s Twitter bio be in mostly Japanese save for one sentence in English; “Reprint is prohibited.”.

If you want to hear me rationalize the absurd claim I just made, feel free to click the “Keep reading” button. Otherwise, turn back now and save yourself from me possibly wasting your time.

Alright, you’ve chosen to stick with me. Just remember, you asked for this.

Introduction

Social media as a whole is based around sharing (posting, uploading, submitting, tweeting, blogging, streaming etc.) and other’s reactions to what one has shared (views, likes, subscribers, favorites, followers, upvotes, retweets, reblogs, crossposts, etc.).

However, miscommunication and culture shock due to language barriers and cultural differences is one of the many factors that can negatively affect one’s experience on social media. For example, the Japanese artist community, active on sites such as Twitter, Pixiv, NicoNico Seiga, FC2 blogs, etc.. Twitter is mostly inhabited by English-speaking users. Here in the west, our main motive for sharing something on social media (such as art) is for fame and recognition. However, over in the East, most online artists only upload their works to the internet for personal use. I’m not saying one cultural attitude towards sharing art is better than one another, but when these two worldviews collide, the culture shock can negatively affect the careers of artists who are unaware of the other culture’s differing views on sharing art.

So, I’ve listed numerous social media platforms below and I’m going to elaborate on how each of them contributes to the alienation and discouragement of Japanese artists.

DO NOT WITCH-HUNT OR HARASS THE CULPRITS I’VE LISTED AS EXAMPLES; THEY ONLY SERVE TO BACK UP MY ARGUMENT

Twitter

Go into the twitter search bar and type in the name of an anime character (usually female). What do you find? Most likely an account named after said character that does nothing but post unsourced fan art of said character with cheesy “in-character” captions on them.

Exhibit A [NSFW]

Exhibit B [NSFW]

Exhibit C [very NSFW]

Aside from that, Twitter isn’t that bad in this regard, as a lot of the art that gets stolen is originally uploaded to Twitter anyway. But I’m just getting started.

Wattpad

Ah yes, Wattpad. One of the “trinity” of fan fiction communities (the others being fanfiction.net and AO³), featuring many different stories with varying degrees of readability. The problem is the option to add a picture to adorn your fanfiction, at which point most of the authors google “<fanfic subject> fan art” and use something from there without considering the repercussions. This causes Wattpad to be one of the top results when reverse image searching to find the source of some fan art, aside from another site I’ll mention later on...

There’s a subreddit I often browse called r/ChurchOfJirou, a community for sharing anything relating to the character Kyouka from My Hero Academia (I mean come on, she’s like the cutest thing ever). A lot of the posts on that sub are sharing fan art of the aforementioned character. One of the rules in the sidebar is “always include the source in the title or the comments”. And most of the submissions make good on that rule. However, a lot of the posts are from Japanese artists on Twitter or Pixiv, and following the source link leads you to find the artist’s bio, which usually has something along the lines of “don’t repost my work”. And what’s more, the biggest offenders (of submitting art to the sub without OP’s permission) were the moderators of the subreddit. You know, the ones who are supposed to be enforcing the rules? I even got so fed up that I called it out, to which one of the mods replied,

“It doesn’t really make a difference, does it?”

Luckily, not all subreddits are like this. For example, other MHA-related subs like r/BokuNoShipAcademia or r/ChurchOfMinaAshido have moderators that are more considerate of artists’ wishes. Overall, Reddit is usually a hit-or-miss when it comes to this kind of thing. At best, you’ve got subs like the two I just mentioned which make sure to respect artists, and at worst you’ve got people trying (and failing) to edit out watermarks. Also, not to self-promote, but this tweet of mine represents this situation pretty well:

Imgur

Imgur isn’t that bad compared to the rest of these, but it’s a common one that people link to when asked for the source of whatever they’ve shared on Twitter or Reddit or whatever.

Amino Apps

Amino Apps is a strange case. I don’t know much about it since I’ve never used it, but from what I do know it seems similar to Reddit in that there are numerous communities for different niches. That said, judging from the way it clogs up Google image search results, I doubt OC art is posted there often.

YouTube

Now, you may be thinking, “How does a video site rip off others’ art?”. The answer is uploads of soundtracks. Look for any OST from a video game or anime on YouTube and the picture used for the video will likely be some fan art by a Japanese Pixiv artist, usually one that forbids reposts of their work. Not only that, but if the uploader did bother to add the source in the description, it’s usually not even a link to the actual source, more likely a link to Zerochan or Pinterest or something. Now take into account that some of these videos get millions of views. Imagine working hard on something, and some numbnuts takes it, slaps some music onto it, uploads it to YouTube, and gets millions of views while you get next to nothing in comparison.

Exhibit A

Exhibit B (re-upload; original had nearly 40 million views before it was copyright claimed)

Exhibit C

and many many others

Alright, this is the big one. When Pinterest isn’t giving recipes or wardrobe ideas to suburban white moms, it’s clogging up Google reverse image search, punishing anyone who just wanted to find the source of some cute fan art. I feel like this meme by ZebitasMartinexSi on Facebook sums it up:

For example, this piece of Legend of Zelda art by Twitter artist @_nomeri_ (I’ll just link to it, since it would be hypocritical of me to embed the image even though @_nomeri_’s bio warns people not to repost their art). Good art, right? Well, if you right-click and hit “Search Google for image”...

...yeah. Pinterest is a plague. It thrives on theft. Even worse is when someone will post fan art on Twitter/Tumblr/Reddit/etc. and have the nerve to say “IDK the source I found it on Pinterest ^_^”. Or worse yet, they link to Pinterest saying it’s the source.

Instagram

While many other sites rag on Instagram for its reposting of memes, it’s no better when it comes to reposting fan art, especially from Pixiv. I’ve seen lots of stolen pieces with fan fictions written in the description. Personally, if I were an artist, I’d rethink my career choice if I saw my art reposted on Instagram with a half-assed fanfic under it, so I don’t blame Japanese artists who close their Pixiv accounts after seeing that. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to prevent it from happening in the first place.

DeviantArt

DeviantArt is more “renowned” across the web for its niche circles of bizarre fetish art, but in its defence, there are some legitimately good pieces on there. If you do find a good one though, try checking to see if all of the uploader’s pieces have a similar overall art style, because if not, that’s a sure sign of someone passing off some Pixiv user’s art as their own, which is unfortunately fairly common on DeviantArt.

9Gag

Not a whole lot to say about 9Gag. I mean, it does contribute to reposting of art, but nothing really separates it from the others on this list, aside from its watermarks. At least the watermark gives away the fact that something was reposted.

Know Your Meme

You know that Zelda pic by @_nomeri_ I was talking about earlier? Well, to add insult to injury, it became an object-labelling meme.

Imagine putting hours into something and politely asking others not to repost it, only to find that some nincompoops on r/DankMemes made it into an object-labelling meme.

But this isn’t KYM’s fault, per se. Know Your Meme only documents memes; they do not create them. However, as someone who regularly browses the Know Your Meme image galleries, I can say that the image gallery has essentially become Know Your Fan Art (unlawfully reposted fan art, that is).

Redbubble

There’s an NSFW artist I follow on Twitter by the name of Nico-Mo. A while ago, his Pixiv account was suspended, and there were numerous pictures on there that he had not uploaded to his Twitter or DeviantArt, so I found a mirror of one of those pieces on Gelbooru and reverse-image searched in hopes of finding it on his Twitter. No such luck. What came up instead was a .png of the piece made into a sticker being sold on Redbubble. In fact, that’s one of the major reasons why artists disapprove of their art being reposted, as it may find its way onto a sticker or a T-shirt being sold as merch without the original artist giving consent nor the artist receiving so much as a single nickel.

Facebook

Surprisingly, I think Facebook is one of the least offending sites on this list. Still worth mentioning, though.

Funnyjunk

Like Imgur, Funnyjunk isn’t that bad compared to some of the rest of these, but this exchange in the comments of a repost of an MHA artist that deleted their account (not hard to see why considering people straight-up ignored the big-ass watermark at the bottom) is proof enough of western social media’s flippant attitude towards ruining online artists’ careers.

Aggregator imageboards such as Yande.re, Konachan, Danbooru, Gelbooru, Rule34, SankakuComplex, Zerochan, etc.

I don’t think I need to explain these. But like Imgur, these are what most people link to when asked for source instead of bothering to find the original post.

We Heart It

I don’t know much about “We Heart It”, but it seems to be a “Pinterest Lite” considering it clogs up image search almost as much as Pinterest does.

iFunny

Basically the same as 9Gag, in the sense that its watermarks are a dead giveaway.

4chan

I’m not sure if 4chan really “counts” among these, as it’s a chat board where nearly everything is impermanent anyway. However, I was once on an NSFW subreddit where one submitter used a 4chan thread to get Patreon-exclusive material from an artist to upload to the sub (even though one of the rules of the sub was “no paywall content”), so that alone earns 4chan its spot on this list.

Tumblr

Yes, not even Tumblr is innocent. Although I’m sure you knew that. Similar to what I said about Twitter, look up any blog named after a fictional character and it’ll likely be chock-full of unsourced fan art.

“Why is this even important?”

Because if an artist sees that their work is being reposted, depending on the artist, they may delete the original post when they wouldn’t have to if people had just respected their wishes. Now, if an artist wants their works gone from the internet for other personal reasons, that’s up to them and we should respect them for it. But artists taking down their works due to mass reposting is 100% preventable, which is why it’s sad. If you don’t respect an artist, they won’t create art. Simple as that.

“Why do you care so much?”

Eh, I’m just weird like that. It just ticks me off when anything online, whether it be art, or a video, or whatever, is lost. In my opinion, nothing hurts more than clicking a Pixiv link on an imageboard and being greeted with “The work was deleted or the ID does not exist.”.

“But lots of western artists forbid reposting of their art too!”

Indeed, that is correct. But while many artists of every nationality and culture frown upon reproduction of their work, it seems only western social media is responsible for reposting art in the first place. I mean, why else do you think Japanese artists are saying “Reprint is prohibited” in English when the rest of their bio is in Japanese? Because English-speakers are the ones reposting.

“But exposure can help an artist!”

Yeah, that’s true...

...but “exposure” doesn’t mean much if those “exposed” to one’s work don’t know or care who it came from.

And if you need even more reasons, look no further than these posts about the same topic by other blogs:

https://cranberrywitch.tumblr.com/post/143456002228/stop-reposting-art-from-japanese-artists

https://thegospelofnagisa.tumblr.com/post/143308182398

https://edendaphne.tumblr.com/post/163117317030/ive-been-wanting-to-make-this-educational-cheat

https://marklightgreatsword.tumblr.com/post/190056977650/discourage-art-theft-in-fandom-in-2020-dont

https://letusrespectpixivartistconsent.tumblr.com/post/92189994896/why-is-this-important

also, not to self-promote but I made a thread on Twitter on this topic about a month ago that you can check out here.

That’s all.

posted Jun 14; last edit Jun 21

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