#stupid and blasphemous art

[drawingdroid]

We have this Catholic thingy in Spain today, Día de los Reyes Magos, it’s supposed to be the day 3 magic kings arrived to Bethlehem to gift tiny Jesus goodies to celebrate his birth. It’s a very important date even though you’re not a Catholic and we exchange presents and eat typycal sweets so I had to draw this:

[the-squeege]

another one

[welcometogrouchland]

We talk a lot about there being zero content for a niche thing you're into but ohhhh my god. Oh my GODDD WHY IS IT SO TORTUOUS. OH MY GOD WHY. KILL ME. PUT ME OUT OF MY MISERY LIKE OLD YELLER. OH MY GOD WHY

[syringesyrup]

Art request 😏 mountain doodles perhaps, but if ur not feelin mountain rn (blasphemous) then swissdew being stupid

if u say so

[coramatus]

Under the City Streets: A Pokémon Submas/Over the Garden Wall AU

The Master Post

Will be updated as more is added

Tumblr main tag: under the city streets au

Content warnings: themes of guilt, depression, suicidal feelings, grief and a lot of angst

Main story outlines:

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [7.1-7.4] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13+]

Assorted snippets of prose:

Part 4: [x] [x] [x] [x] [x] [x]

Main story artwork (in rough narrative order):

Their First Encounter in the Unknown

The Woodsman is not ok

Watch where you’re swinging that!

The End of Their First Encounter

Sopping wet and berated by an angry Starly

The Beast and the Woodsman

“You are more lost than you realize.”

RIP Emmet’s coat

Lady Sneasler speaks to Emmet: [one] [two]

Emmet’s promise to Lady Sneasler

Emmet meets Irida the Glaceon

Irida is not really a Glaceon

Irida, Adaman, and Volo stare in horror as Emmet blasphemes

Emmet unites the Diamond and Pearl clans by pissing both of them off

Irida calls Emmet a ding dong

How to smuggle your tiny birb buddy

“🎶I’M THE HIGHWAY MAN🎶”

“Curse you, lady! Curse you! You’ll die someday and I’ll laugh! Laugh!!”

The Conductor

DON’T GO OUT

Their Second Encounter in the Unknown: [one] [two]

The Woodsman Unhinged

tfw you’re about to be burned alive

Emmet’s Edelwood oil burn

Smoke inhalation makes Volo cuddly

Lady Sneasler rocks Emmet’s hat

God gives you a doll of yourself. Wdyd?

I SAID LEAVE

Their Third Encounter in the Unknown: [one] [two] [three] [four] [five] [six]

Emmet’s despair

Their Fourth Encounter in the Unknown: [one] [two]

Ingo begs for Lady Sneasler’s help (updated first image)

Glaring down his tormentor

Ingo refuses to be called the Woodsman anymore

Ingo’s gonna stick that axe where the sun don’t shine

The Beast is an asshole

That’s gonna leave a scar

The three stages of realizing your brother is a dumbass

Looking for his stupid fucking brother in this stupid fucking forest with this stupid fucking lantern

Hunting down his idiot brother in the dark

Ingo’s despair

Get outta there!

Emmet and the Beast

“Are you?”

I’ve got you. I’ve got you…

help…

A moment of peace

Post-Unknown artwork:

Edelwood side effects

Ingo and Chandelure’s very awkward moment

Guilt

Ingo’s Anxieties

Jason the Therapist

Ingo learned Unstoppable Rage. It’s super effective!

Soft snuggle time

Ingo? Ripped?? Buff Ingo??!!

Ingo and the unexpected therapy Minccino

Snuggles with Little Fluff the Minccino

Therapy Minccino at work

Pokémon Gijinka designs:

The Diner folks

The Hunter

The Lake Witches

The Old Man of the Mountain

Out of place artwork:

The very first art post

Volo the Ittiest, Bittiest, Teeniest, Tiniest, Little Starly

Even the Beast thinks the Woodsman is a sad mess

And it is absolutely right

Skrungly Woodsman is skrungly

Rage and Despair

The Truest Submas/OtGW Crossover

[val-of-the-north]

While I was drawing the stupid Aldrich meme things I made some time ago [x], I was researching his Archdeacons as well, since I wanted to picture at least two of them... and this led me to think about McDonnell quite a bit ahah.

His introduction of sorcery among the clergy was already seen as kind of blasphemous on its own.

But then he surpassed himself by delving into the Deep for darker sorceries, outright reveling in said corruption.

He is also explicitly from the Boreal Valley like Aldrich...

This led me to two potential storylines for him: he is either one of Aldrich's closest friends since the very beginning, or (the option I find most compelling) he could have been sent there by Sulyvahn to oversee things and ensure they remained under control.

Sulyvahn is the biggest sorcerer bastard hiding in the clergy, and his sorcery is only barely masked to look like Gwyndolin's moon powers and not his own magic arts.

So a sorcerer from the Boreal Valley getting into the Cathedral of the Deep as a sort of mole for him would make sense. Only, Sulyvahn did not anticipate that McDonnell would grow to become fond of Aldrich and the whole Deep thing, leading him to betray the Pontiff later on.

Or maybe he still acted in Sulyvahn's stead and was the one who even allowed Aldrich to be sacrificed initially, which is something the Saint wouldn't have wanted to do himself since he had gotten visions of an Age of the Deep Sea.

But maybe it had been something he had always regretted and was only pressured into allowing by Sulyvahn. This may be why he forsook his white crown and later joined Aldrich in his march towards the Boreal Valley. A sort of fuck you to his former master.

Of course, the Pontiff would not let his betrayal slide, which is why he is found dead, hidden by an invisible wall, and guarded by two of his beasts, even after what appears to be a truce between the two warring sides...

I assume it happened afterward because he can be found after Sulyvahn's cathedral, so they had to have already gone through it. He also looks like he has been cast aside there to rot, as opposed to having died there during the struggle. Why would he need to go down here anyway? I like to think the Pontiff would be petty enough to still have a traitor killed and disposed of, even when he isn't totally in control.

[beevean]

What pisses me off the most about NFCV is the way it disrespects the original medium of video gaming. The show sets up a potential action setpiece similar to a level from the game (the turning wheel, s1e3 I think) and then just *walks around it*. Everything about the way "Devil Forging" works in the show demonstrates that Ellis didn't even consult a cutscene compilation, much less the game. And sure enough, the fucker admits he never played them. Why adapt source material you've never experienced?

*Captain N* (a show I defend to the death) was better than this. It embraces the action montage, and even if things aren't 1-to-1, they do capture the appeal of the gameplay they adapt. It understands people love the original work. NFCV plows through the formalities of adapting a guy skimming the wikipedia summary of the game and then sits everyone in a basement for a full season.

The only times I felt I was watching an adaptation of Castlevania was in S1, with things like the fight against the Cyclop who petrified Sypha and Trevor falling into the deepest catacombs where Alucard hid himself, and in S4, where the last fight before the final showdown with Death happens in a clock tower, his iconic hideout.

As for the rest, I remember some snarky fans defending the show's wildly different direction with things like "what, did you expect to see Trevor jumping on platforms?" I don't know but it sure as shit would have been better than the trio wasting the entirety of S2 cooped up in a library! Yes, I would have preferred to see them travel through forests and caves and swamps, instead of wasting my time watching N!Alucard being a complete jerk to N!Trevor for no good reason! (and no, defending vampires is not a good reason)

bro. bro not even the vampire killer is treated with respect. it's replaced with the morning star which is a different weapon, and then n!trevor drops it in favor of a knife pulled out of the story's ass. the morning star pisses n!dracula off, but a fucking stick is capable of killing him. are you doing this on purpose.

And don't get me started on Devil Forging. I actually don't mind too much the idea of making it more similar to necromancy, because it would fit with the idea that it's a cursed, disgusting, blasphemous art. I also can concede that the knowledge that Dracula infused Hector and Isaac with his own power is very obscure, vaguely implied in one cutscene in CoD and one panel of PtR, and confirmed in a pre-release interview. But everything else is so less interesting. It's an art that apparently N!Hector was born with for no reason and N!Isaac could study on his own, removing the personal connection between Dracula and Forgemasters. There are other Forgemasters in the world: those two are not special (which also makes me wonder why N!Dracula bothered to hire N!Hector with a lie when he could have travelled some more: I'm sure Miranda would have helped him). N!Isaac eventually becomes so OP he can stibby stabby to create new Night Creatures without any effort. None of the interesting themes about dehumanization or forcing pure creatures to sin are hinted at*. Even N!Hector's unique cavalier relationship with death, a genuinely but interesting childish mentality of "oh no, death is sad! but I can fix it!", is never explored, because the story was too busy making him look stupid and breedable. And to top it all off, Nocturne literally introduces the concept of a Devil Forging machine which is so bad it sucks even in universe.

*the closest thing to this is in S4 with this line from N!Isaac: "You believe you are tools of destruction only because this is how your kind have always been used". Admittedly, it's a cool line I would have loved to apply to Hector and Isaac. But it doesn't quite work because by definition Night Creatures are not innocent, being demons from hell... and anyway he keeps using them to kill people in Styria because N!Isaac is a bastard and unlike Isaac he won't even admit it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ that line comes off as so self-aggrandizing and I hate how much the show shills him so I won't cut it any slack because I'm petty.

As for Captain N, I will say this: the inclusion of the Poltergeist King is, of course, totally wrong from a lore stand point, but to me it tells that the writers actually read the manual in search of information, and the American manual really was the only resource they had at their disposal at the time. Just like that, they put in more effort than Warren "somehow didn't realize on his own that Mathias Cronqvist was Dracula's human name while reading a wiki page" Ellis.

[sanjisblackasswife]

If You're Smart You'd Read This:

I’m in my 20’s.

I write adult shit so children shouldn’t be interacting with me or my posts.

Blank pages /Ageless pages /Minors get blocked. Like 90% of the shit i post is not suitable for yall lmao.

Don’t ask me for tips/advice on anything such as art, your writing, anything. Google it. Thats what I did.

I speak my opinion. And if you don’t agree idc.

It’s very easy to be blocked by me. So don’t try out the theory of it.

YOU CANNOT BE ANONYMOUS WHEN REQUESTING ONLY NSFW If you want a nsfw request you have to unanon yourself so i can see ur age in ur bio.

Do not ask me super personal questions.

Do not ask me why I will or wont do something.

Do not be annoying and send long mf hcs in my ask. It’ll get deleted.

Do not try and keep having a whole convo w me in my ask (unless ur my mutual) esp. if u anon.

Speaking of Mutuals. I have mutual bias. So theres some things I let them do/say to me that my followers cant.

I will not write: Piss play, rape, incest, furry stuff, Alpha/Omega verse, pet play🧍🏾‍♀️ and will ABSOLUTELY NOT write anything blasphemous about God or other religions

Please only use my ask box for request or genuine questions

I don’t do emergency request

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I will write for other fandoms besides One Piece! An example (but not limited to): Jujustu Kaisen, Naruto, Fire Force, Gangsta, etc

Speaking of One Piece my page does contain MAJOR spoilers (ill try to put warnings if i can)

I mostly write for POC/Black Fem Readers but it’s not limited most of the time. Any girl can read.

If you request something please give me time :( I can only write so much in a day.

I hate like 99% of ships people have made in all fandoms so please don’t tell me yours, and if you ask me opinions on them I will be brutally honest with it.

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I also don’t gaf if you don’t agree with my HC…I just…bro go write em yourself I’m not writing these for you.

Please don’t trauma dump on me…just don’t I’m not a therapist.

If you want something specific BE SPECIFIC

I don’t really care for dark content(?) I’m not really sure what it is exactly it is (because I’m stupid) so if your request dark content lmk and if I feel uncomfortable with it ill decline lol

I will NOT Write NSFW for characters like Chopper, Brook, etc

I will NOT Write for demons like Sukuna or characters from Obey Me

If your share repost/blog my writing please give credit!

I really only write female x male NSFW. (I will however write fxf or mxm platonically) That’s just personal preference and what I feel best writing :) please respect that decision.

I don’t do character x character writing unless it’s canon (…or if it’s eren and Mikasa i—)

I do NOT age up characters for nsfw writing. If they’re not canonically already an adult or have a pre timeskip I’m not doing that. I’ll do SFW ones though!

I do have to right to not write for a character I just simply don’t like so don’t get mad if I don’t.

Remember: this is mf FAN FICTION writing. Just a bunch of ideas I have in my weird head so if u don’t like or agree with it dip.

I’ll keep this rule list updated (ill reblog when i update the list) when I can if new stuff comes up. I’m relatively new on here so bare with me :(

[6ad6ro]

ufo 50 and dark souls part 3:

much like with gta or call of duty, everyone was trying to make a souls game, or just shoving aspects where they didn't belong. as far as indie games go, i'll use shovel knight as an example. it's a fine game, i like sk. but when you die, you lose gold and have to go back to where you died and pick it back up, or risk losing it forever. it was so unnecessary, and added stress and anxiety for no reason. yet there it was. it never woulda been there without souls, and woulda made for a better game overall. not a huge deal, but then you have games like hollow knight which is an amazing game but def starts to get tedious to unplayable later. or blasphemous which is just AWFUL from the start.

and of course, there's all those reprehensible pos soulslikes that bigger companies tried to make without understanding that the only reason souls got away with so much of it's bullshit is it had insanely good art, lore, and aesthetics. but that aside, you also had souls elements seeping into other big series. like take zelda botw. there's zero doubt in my mind that souls wasn't a huge inspiration, anyone trying to argue otherwise would be a fool. the last decade or so of the series was very lenient with it's challenge, but suddenly in botw things will kill you left and right. i'm not trying to say botw or totk are as hard as souls, but the influence is obviously there. and it makes for a worse game. the whole "weapons break easily" system is dumb. the whole thing they do with food is maybe even worse, semi unlimited healing means the devs can't balance the combat properly, and it was a shitty bandaid solution for an unnecessary problem.

this is what i'm saying. dark souls has really really hurt the whole gaming landscape, to an intensity that i've never seen before. and the good souls elements are usually ignored in favor of "make game hard, profit". and while i don't think ufo 50 will ever be as influential as souls? it's making huge waves in the indie scene. it's gonna change the indie landscape for sure. but idk if it'll be for the right reasons. are people months from now gonna be talking about moon cat or porgy or pilot quest? or are they just gonna be doing speedruns of barbuta?? in my head, all the fun games will probably be old news, and what's gonna be left is all the brutal stuff. all those artificially and needlessly hard games.

and it makes me wary. i really like ufo 50, i'm fine with half the games being bad, and talk to my friends about how cool the game is. but is it gonna negatively affect my hobby in the future? idk. like, i was the biggest demons souls fan you'd ever meet back then. but now i feel stupid. now i feel like i should have called the game out for it's shit and not just focused on the good parts. elden ring was a great example of a half "top 20 of all time", half awful. but then they made the followup dogshit overhard dlc and ruined the name, and it's like "oh god, there's another 10 years of shitty games if this does well".

i think people like to pretend that everything is in this sort of bubble. but i can safely say as somebody who has been playing games for 40 years that, no, these kinds of things can have an overwhelming effect on the hobby.

[caspersgraveyard]

let's hear your thoughts on stem, engineering student

okay so this is gonna be a little biased because i fkn hate it but i will try my best to eliminate most bias.

first of all, that post was absolutely right. engineers tend to have brilliant analytical minds but unfortunately those minds also feed directly into the churning onslaught of capitalism with little humanitarian care. all throughout school, the motto was very much "if it can't go on your resume, it's not worth doing" and now in uni the biggest competitions are those that aim to produce a monetizable outcome from the winners. doing things for the sake of doing them or even just because you'd enjoy them is not an idea that most engineers take kindly to. i can absolutely see why the person mentioned in the post would use "wife" with that much disgust, as opposed to the affection it should evoke.

(i don't know how much of my reply from here on out will actually pertain to that post, but it will all be commenting on STEM)

my views on engineering are rather culturally influenced. i'm brown (indian, specifically), which means the vast majority of people going on to college (which is treated as an expectation rather than the achievement that it is) go into STEM in one way or the other, most often engineering. it's what was expected of me and what i was pushed into and that's left something of a bitter taste in my mouth, especially since i really just want to be a writer.

the post also calls to mind the inherent superiority complex that "real" techies / STEM people seem to harbour and that's something that's actually bred into kids from a very very young age in india. indian education boards work by splitting students into different streams of choice; broadly: science, humanities, and arts (i didn't attend an indian board - i did the IB - but the sentiment very much stayed true in my school too; i think this split happens in the last two years of schooling, if i'm not mistaken). taking science was something every kid was expected to do and only those who scored the very best grades were allowed to take it, breeding that superciliousness from both the education system and the kids' parents who all want their kids to get into science. the other two streams are treated as consolation options at best and disappointments more often than not.

the IB equivalent of that was people choosing subjects according to the requirements of the degree they're going to go on to get and those who took non-STEM subjects were basically seen as stupider, less deserving, less important, blah blah blah.

part of this, i'm sure, is just taking harder subjects for the sake of taking harder subjects and proving you're "smart enough" to (which is arguably even stupider). i suppose that just stems from the death grip that hustle culture has on everyone where if you're not constantly on the brink of burnout, you're doing something wrong.

because of allllll of this, so many engineering colleges are filled with students who:

didn't know what they wanted to do so were pushed into engineering

didn't want to go to school anymore but that's damn near blasphemous so obviously you're going to uni and it'll be an engineering uni at that

knew exactly what they wanted to do but that was deemed less than so were pushed into engineering.

engineering as a field was designed to make brilliant innovations that actually helped people. (and yes, entertainment is very much helping people. not everything has to make tidal waves; ripples are just as important and impactful.) instead, it's just treated as a pathway to making money and getting rich, very often at the ethical expense of loads of others, and very often done while staring these ethical expenses right in the eye.

on the unrelated note of tidal waves versus ripples though: i really do think we need more people getting on board with small dreams. not everyone wants to change the world, make it rich, or get super famous. some of us just want a nice, quiet life with the ones we love, doing something that makes us happy (or at least something we're neutral about, as opposed to something that feels like it's slowly crippling my soul).

AND while we're at it, i will never not be mad at the fact that STEM is the most profitable path of choice. why??? why??? why is it seen as better than others? why is it seen as requiring more smarts or trainings than others (with the obvious exceptions of doctors et al. who actually do need a lot more training)?

knowing loads and loads about the arts is seen as the epitome of class and intelligence, but is paid basically nothing compared to STEM and the second someone wants to make a career out of that we laugh and mock them. we tell them to be ready for disappointment and to have a backup. why is the barrier to entry into the arts so high? why can't it too have a streamlined process like STEM?

whenever i talk about this stuff, i feel it pertinent to make it clear that i'm not a STEM-reject. i'm not spurned or salty or whatever. people seem to devalue the opinions of those commenting on STEM fields from outside the field themselves (which, needless to say but i'll say it anyway, is dumb), so to rebuke that in anticipation: i've won academic awards every year of high school, i got one of the highest scores possible in the IB with a STEM subject stack, i was consistently at the top of my class, i've done a number of research projects with very actionable applications, i've interned at a bunch of major companies, i'm currently studying at a global T10 engineering uni in its most selective course (only 50 people are allowed in every year and only 42 got selected in my cohort, out of which 10 changed courses within the first semester, leaving us with 32), and i bagged the highest paying internship out of anyone in my cohort (and, as far as i'm aware, anyone in my entire year). i know what i'm talking about.

[dougielombax]

The Last Temptation of Christ is NOT a blasphemous work!

It is NOT!

I will hear NO MORE of it!

Anyone who says otherwise can choke on a bullet!

It’s a fiction exploring a purely hypothetical scenario!

It’s a fictional work showing Christ as a flawed human being while looking into the possibility that he may have doubted himself at the most, and that he might have, for a moment, considered abandoning his mission to God, for a moment, and gone down a different path entirely.

That is not blasphemy. It’s speculation at the least and a character study as well. It is harmless.

There is nothing wicked or blasphemous about it!

No matter how many small-minded, beady-eyed, balding, pathologically bitter, perpetually miserable, cloistered, rotbrained, firebrand, virginal, godbothering, robe-wearing fascists would say otherwise.

In the DEPTHS of their ignorance!

They know nothing of fiction, arts and literature at the most and even THAT is being generous.

Fuck them to death and back! Their delusional prattlings and babblings mean nothing!

The author of the book (Nikos Kazantzakis) was accused of blasphemy by the Greek Orthodox Church.

Many Catholic clergy also had similar views of the book and its subsequent film adaptation by Martin Scorsese (I’ve nothing against him but his films aren’t really my thing, the Last Temptation and Kundun are both exceptions to this rule).

Because they DARE not move beyond their dogmatic view of Christ or broaden their artistic horizons, not daring to look at their saviour from a different perspective.

Are they afraid that we might see something in it that they DON’T?!

Stupid creatures! To hell with the lot of them!

Fucking bumbrains!

[faelynnupward]

I am not a Christian. I have studied some Christian art history.

It is utterly baffling, to me, how insanely blasphemous Trump fanatics are. Like… these depictions would have at certain points in actual history gotten you burned at the stake.

That man. THAT man is the second coming? There is no fucking way. How could anyone believe that? It is cartoonishly stupid. I don’t think I could dream up a less Christ-like figure.

It is hard to believe any of this is real. 19 year old me sitting in my History of Medieval Art course in 2005 would laugh you off campus if you tried to tell me this would happen… and 19 year old me was way less tolerant of basically any stripe of Christian and believed most were just stupid and I still would have scoffed.

[11thfempachi]

Passionate Orthodox people calling baroque and Renaissance Christian art blasphemous for drawing Christian saints, Mary and Jesus as average Europeans... Y'all realise that iconography is based on greco-roman "worldly" pagan portraits of emperors and aristocracy? Like the types of icons like Orans or possibly even deesis? Like even if you say "oh of course they remind us of something worldly the way people pray is the same everywhere" (Not exactly true but okay) the art style of Orthodox art is unmistakably greco-roman and stems from ideals of nations that were seasoning in paganism no matter how hard they tried to make themselves look inherently Christian after centuries of feeding Christians to lions. If you don't want any art that could make Christian figures look less vague and divine why did you fight for icons so hard? Why do you have Eleusa or Mater Dolorosa, I thought biblical figures were ineffable and so were their feelings and emotions to the human mind and therefore couldn't be portrayed in a sympathetic manner because it makes them look "less solemn"? Why the fuck don't you just remove all pictures of any biblical figure then save for like. Christ the Redeemer and Hodegetria? Because God forbid they have any human features and also how dare you mention Christ coming to earth in human form nothing about his life was human he just took a shape of a man so you stupid fucking piglets would listen to him. Should've been a burning bush instead. But also he totally felt very human pain on the cross

Girl make up your mind

[mossy-green-aka-ferrythem]

Good news! I have the Unalloyed Gold Needle! Frenzied Flame begone! This world will not be destroyed if I have anything to say about it!

Now all I need to do is beat Malenia. Thankfully I snagged the Blasphemous Blade, and fully upgraded it. Since she's not dying as fast as I'd hoped, I am going to snag the Shard of Alexander to make my strategy work... better.

(My strategy is using the weapon art over and over again because like. Malenia isn't the kind of boss that fights fair. The rest of her attacks are manageable but she can easily turn the entire fight against you with one move, one Ash of War...

So why not do the same to her back? I dislike the inconsistency of Waterfoul Dance, so everytime I fight her, I vex her for it, summon, do whatever stupid strategy I come up with, and win.)

Also like. Even still with a full faith build and a full playthrough on my shoulders... I still don't know how to handle Faith LMAO

Too indecisive, however,

I mean like. Handling incantations and what not. It gets a lot more fun when you stop being like "which incant????" and more like "i'm just gonna throw a bolt at them."

Anyways yeah having a lot of fun! I am sure things will come together even more strongly when I get to the DLC with this character!

[esondecherica]

Aprys . 18+

any pronouns

member of a plural system - fallen angel / demon - satanist

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[transmansplainer]

Yeah, so, PhD in English Literature chiming in here.

I wrote my dissertation on Victorian literature and the birth of science fiction. I have a pedigree, credentials, 24 conferences, and over 20 classes taught under my belt.

So when I tell you that fanfic is real art and absolutely fucking based, I know exactly what the fuck I am talking about.

First, fanfic is old... like, stupid old. We can talk about derivative literature, or get into all the stories which are just reframing mythological narratives. We could talk about how Frankenstein is Paradise Lost but better, or how much "art" is derived from popular narrative. But pretty much as long as we've been telling stories, we've been listening to them and thinking, "huh... I wonder what would happen if...?" And boom! Fanworks.

Second, if you wanna be a real asshole, we could get into what "art" is and how it isn't real at all but is rather a concept that we share among us like a kind of collective fever dream, and that it is, therefore, a constantly moving signifier for which there is no signified... but I would also like to keep this thing short so I'll just say that my bibliography is bigger than yours and leave it at that.

Third, and most importantly, ALL ART IS REAL ART and fanfic, fanart, and adaptation have been around since AT LEAST the birth of the novel.

What makes fanwork unique (and I'll limit myself here to fic bc it's what I know best) is that it an inherently communal and anticapitalist form of creation, which bars it from more traditional markers of legitimacy. It cannot be credited to a single person, so cannot contribute to the cult of the "author" or buy into our dumb creationist mythology of how all great things must derive from a single mind. It also cannot be sold, and therefore lacks both the "aura"* of more traditional forms and the acrural of capital that we use as benchmarks of "success".**

This doesn't mean it isn't "real art"-- only that it openly and purposefully defies the markers of that category. It is an exploration of a shared imaginative space which allows individuals to dream as a collective. It is rhizomatic, with new tropes and head-canons emerging organically among a disjointed, non-hierarchical, polythestic community. It is an inherently blasphemous space which can only be so by both taking the source material very seriously while denying the authority of the Author-God and daring to rewrite it.***

How many times do fic writers take a source text so much more seriously that the showrunners or networks, or actors? How much more do we know about these characters as characters than the people who own them?

This is serious work. It is real art. Even when it is bad, or silly, or stupid, or yes-- racist and bigoted and gross. It is still art.

Unpublished writing is art. Scribbles on paper are art. A drawing o lr a digital sketch or a poem are art.

Because what makes art real isn't some external validation of value and existence by the Other, it is an experience which we go through in its creation, and it is the experience which we have when we encounter it.****

In short-- gatekeeping is fucking stupid, and it sucks hard-core when it comes to the subject of art. How many of us have killed our own dreams because they weren't "good enough"? How many of us have thrown aside our paints because we're not "real artists"?

And how many of us have had to fight our way back to a place of healing where we can be brave and write the damn thing? Or paint the damn thing? Or just put the fear of God into some oil pastels?

So yeah, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. If you want good theory, hmu, otherwise, it is late and god speed and good luck.

*see Benjamin, "A work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction"

**yes, I know that fanfic has been repackaged and sold, but this Tumblr and not my dissertation defense so you get what you get.

***there is a ton of theory behind all this, but Jenkins and whoever wrote "Cyborg Manifesto" are probably the most blatantly ripped off.

****I'm gesturing vaguely to Foucault here from History of Sexuality, Part 1-- specifically in how in a post-Freudian world the subject must "confess" to the Other and have their confession heard and validated to have access to subjectivity and exist under the Law, but christ it is late and I am not pulling quotes.

I am aware I have died on this hill before but people who really strenuously argue that fanfic isn't "real writing" drive me insane. what do you meeeaaaaannn. besides the fact that any attempt to define "real art" vs "fake art" is inherently reactionary, it just doesn't make any sense. it's Writing. people Write it. what the fuck are you talking about.