#the thing about how artists don’t make art anymore because they don’t get reblogs IS a guilt trip and I hate it

[birdantlers]

A heartfelt and grievously expanded-upon update to this—please, please read the whole thing if you can. reblogs much appreciated.

(DISCLAIMER, for all who are saying reasons like abusive parents/legal stuff/toxic ex/triggering memories/page got deleted/job/stalkers/bullying/[[insert any other shitty life thing]], This is not concerning that—personal safety & health ALWAYS comes first, and is worth more than any media ever could be. This is my biggest reason for defending that autonomy. I would be a hypocrite to say I hadn’t deleted triggering posts of mine or ones that got me in trouble with my family.)

it genuinely makes me sad and kinda upset when someone purges all their old art off the internet like. barring harmful content what if someone liked that. What if someone would have. And now nobody will ever know and it's just gone. even people's old invader zim askblogs or whatever getting deleted feels like a micro alexandria to me and that's just something I made up. I wasn't even thinking of a specific one it just stresses me out. Is this the autism I don't get why nobody else seems to freak internally abt it like I do. I see artists whose blogs I've never even looked at go like "man so glad I deleted all my old stuff it's so clean" or saying they throw out art from when they were kids I'm like. how are you not hurling. How is that not distressing that is literally your tree rings why would you do that. I want to see what's out there. people want to see it I promise someone out there likes it

...don't they??? Does everyone get quietly irrationally upset by this as me, or is this just hyperfixation/autism/some amalgam of the two. I'm not a hoarder or obsessive compulsive or anything like that so i wonder..

Anyways. reblog if you had a favorite amateur youtube animator in your childhood whose channel got nuked without a trace one day that you still think about.

I wanted to attach this video because it condenses my point very well. A TLDR of sorts. Please watch the whole thing, it genuinely changed the entire way I think about art as a concept.

(2nd vid is "Subjectivity in Art")

“The moment your art touches an audience, the ownership shifts in an irreversible way. [They're] not having an art experience with you and your intentions. They're having an art experience with the art object.

“You can't just burn your past; it's not even your past to burn anymore. It's other people's history as well. Whether or not you like it, that art is already bonded to somebody's soul, and if you rip the art away, you're ripping a bit of the soul that has adhesive contact to it.”

The digital age makes it very easy to distance or detach yourself from the impact your work has—be it art, fanfic, videos, even memes. Online content is as important to people now as any other media, if not more. But it's also by far the easiest, fastest, and most effective form of it to erase from public access. Media so unbelievably important to people and in general. Yes, you—with the 2010s purple sparkle dog speedpaint. I still think about that speedpaint all the time, because it was the first time i learned that you could draw on a computer, and I thought it was cool as hell. I still do.

I do wish there was a stronger culture of preservation and consideration for this, because every time I see people talk about snuffing their stuff because it doesn't personally resonate with them anymore, I just think ...what about all the people it did?

I've seen lots of people saying "get over it, it doesn't even matter," but it fucking does. It does matter. Even if I didn’t make it, even if I don’t have to deal with being the one who made it, even if I'm naturally inclined to be distressed by it—It still matters. And there’s nothing you could ever say to suddenly make it not matter, because there’s nothing you could ever say to make it not matter to me.

Don't devalue the act of creation. Don't dismiss something you made. It's out there, in people's thoughts and hearts and souls, and that is real. Even if you don't know it. Especially if you don't know it. Especially in a world where physical media is being snuffed out, the internet is constantly dying without any physical remains to recover, social isolation is rampant, and simply because independently produced content online is still media.

Fanfiction can hold equal or greater significance to someone as a book, but you can’t unpublish a book. Authors don’t have a button that can vaporize every copy of their work across all time, but fanfiction authors do. I’m not counting people who download fics either—when you buy a book, that transaction is over. But online, you have the power of unending transaction that can be terminated instantly at your will. The process of publishing fanfic vs. publishing a book may be different, but people’s connection to the art is the same intensity.

So yeah. I do get depressed about the Internet being a constant Alexandria, but the times I get the most depressed is when I click someone's page and see that all their work is gone because they're ‘curating a new aesthetic’ for their page or some shit. Or weeding out all the "ugly" art. Or just went on whatever the hell 'thrill deleting' is, because they just get a kick out of it.

Fuck it—yeah! It upsets me! I’m not wrong to say that. I’m saying it!

Under the cut, because it got long as shit! Also don’t worry the ending is way sappier and more ‘beauty of human nature’ vibe so it’s not all doom and gloom lol

What if that was someone's favorite art of that character. What if someone read that 'cringe oneshot' on the worst day of their life. What if that Warriors meme vid is still burned into a college student’s mind despite being gone for 10 years. What if it's actually not just you and the ones and zeros you rent out to the world—secure in knowing the original will always be on your computer for you to do whatever you want with it.

I really, deeply wish there was more of a general awareness of this, because even though social media can be used like a diary, that’s functionally the opposite of what it is. It’s social media. When you post, it’s no longer in a vacuum, even though you can’t see the real humans that content touches—often deeply.

Media is history. You shouldn’t burn that history just because you personally believe it isn’t worth saving.

Because it’s no longer just your personal opinion. It’s no longer just your personal work. it’s. history. Memory of media is not a suitable replacement for the media itself. If it was, we wouldn’t save anything at all. Nostalgia is an agent of that. The definition of nostalgia is grief for moments of the past that are inaccessible, and the biggest balm for that pain is accessing a physical reminder of those moments. That opinion of yours is no longer personal. It’s weighed against uncountable people across all time that your thing is ALSO personal to. People who would, and will mourn its absence.

How many times have you joined an older fandom only to discover that some of its most popular works are gone? How many times have you routed through random blogs looking for scraps people hopefully reblogged? how many times have you used Wayback machine desperately praying that a fan fiction or a YouTube video will be there? How many times do you look up crunchy old vines or YouTube videos or anime AMV‘s? How many times do you remember old fanfic.net sex that impacted you in middle school, only to shake your head and go ‘probably no point even looking.’

i mourn the absence. No, people can’t and shouldn’t have their agency over what they post revoked, but they should be conscious of that weight. If you’re reading this and getting extremely annoyed, and you’re not in the pink text above,,,, good.

I honestly do hope it gets under your skin. I hope it sits with you. I hope you feel it every time you hit that button, and whether or not you do hit that button—if you hesitate, if you remember this, even spitefully, I’ve done my job. I am howling into the void. And I may not want an answer, but I do want my anguish to be heard and remembered. Because it isn’t me just being melodramatic.

I know I sound that way writing so much, but if my favorite writing YouTuber can drop trow this week and go, "yeah, sorry, all my video essays from less than a year ago that you listen to in the car all the time? I'm "rebranding" my content so i deleted them. besides, my personal views don't really agree align with the analyses i did, or the techniques i taught in them anyway. Sorry if some of the literal tens of thousands of you used them, but I don't want to feel shackled to having youtuber "classics" tied to me”

….then i guess I'm just going to have to sound dramatic! That fucking sucks! Hours of work and knowledge gone! This was a new channel too. It’s very likely there’s no archive of any kind, because who would think someone who worked hard enough to write, record, and edit hour-long videos, would just turn around and nuke it all? I definitely didn’t see it coming, but I did just start a new screenwriting class a few weeks ago, so I’ll tell you at least one person is REALLY missing those fucking videos right now. Because a lot of them were about specifically screenwriting, which I know jack shit about. and that specific person’s pace, editing, and style of breaking down information was the best suited style I found that I could focus on and absorb. There’s no replacement for that. No alternative for his individual perspective. his jokes. his opinions.

No, they may not resonate with him now, but in this decision, he’s put up a big middle finger to everyone who might have. And he has like 100k subscribers! Those are confirmed supporters! Imagine how many silent and untethered observers are feeling this loss right now. Imagine how many will not have it in the future.

If he never posted them at all, we wouldn’t know we had it. It wouldn’t be a loss. But we did. We did have it. Until he decided that no, we didn’t, because he just happens to be the one out of millions of individuals holding the button to burn it in a hundredth of a second.

His personal work, the attachment I had to it, and the ways that it helped me are now just ripped away. I am one person out of millions, literal MILLIONS of people who saw and liked this content before it vanished. The soul has been ripped, the access severed, and by CJ’s (and my) definition, the art is functionally dead. Not for the YouTuber or anyone else lucky enough to save a link or download, but everyone else. From this point until the end of time, even if people even two weeks from now don’t know it. Even if someone who stumbles upon his channel today, doesn’t know it.

We only mourn the concept of Alexandria because we had some kind of scope for what was inside. Yes, maybe you got self-conscious and deleted your 12 year old deviant art account. Do you know who else is doing that?? THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS of other twenty somethings who ALSO feel self-conscious about their old socials. Art. Fanfic. One direction fan videos. anything.

Suddenly, an unquantifiable amount of information from your age group—an entire age group in 2012, is. gone. And we will NEVER know what’s been erased from that history. We will NEVER know what could have been significant to us ten years from now. Twenty years from now. A hundred years. A thousand.

You could have deleted a fanfic that would have been someone else’s new go-to panic attack distraction tomorrow. You could have deleted a video someone used to laugh at with their friend who died yesterday. When you delete something, you risk tearing a hole in unknowable personal histories.

The Internet isn’t just a big library of Alexandria. It’s a library containing libraries. And those libraries have their own libraries in those libraries have their own as well. libraries inside libraries, inside libraries, ad infinitum. To conceive the amount of destroyed history on the Internet is crushing.

And I just can’t help but I ask myself how in gods name people can choose to contribute to that, instead of reposting everything to trash heap alts titled “hall of shame” or some shit.

You can offload to alts. Put up disclaimers. Make password locked blogs, or dropboxes, or anonymous imgur dumps. Anonymous reuploads. Orphan fics. Make a playlist or linktree of unlisted videos. Cut off the watermarks. Delete all references to it on your main. Make a dedicated unlisted playlist. make a google drive. Make new portfolio sites. Delete any questions you get about it. Change pen names. Pretend it never existed.

Give a heads up.

Something.

But don’t. kill. the media.

The knowledge that our stuff is going to forever be tied to us is a cross we have to bear, but the responsibility that comes with putting it out there in the first place, can’t be ignored.

Anyway. I'm not trying to start conflict. This is not a bash on anyone, nor a call for witch hunts. Or anon hate, or blocks and unfollows or anything of that nature. I'm not wishing ramifications or hate of any kind on anyone who does wants to do any of this.

I'm also not guilt tripping— I am not saying that you should feel bad. I AM saying why it makes me feel bad. That’s not guilting, it’s a dialogue. One I personally feel is long overdue.

It's me yelling into the void: please consider the real people on the other side of the screen before you hit that button. Realize and know that whatever you're about to erase from history could be the most important thing in the world to someone.

Art is an experience. It's why we revisit it. If art and history simply lived in the matter and code of media, we would only need to look at it once. We wouldn’t put things in museums. We wouldn’t build libraries. We wouldn’t look up vine compilations.

If you're able, consider (and I do mean consider, this is not a call to action) not destroying that. And don’t shrug it off as some pretentious asshole venting on Tumblr. You only need to look in the notes and tags to see that it isn’t just me. it’s never just me, or you, or the pixels.

And even if you do shrug it off, then at least recognize that what you make matters. Whatever you think about it, if it’s out there, that's not your discretion anymore. If a tree falls in the woods and even one person is around to see it, it fucking mattered. Because it happened. Don’t mulch your tree rings if you don’t have to. Because if enough people do it, a whole forest is gone. Media is history, no matter whether you think it’s worth putting in a museum, or only has 30 notes.

Thousands of years ago, a child named onfim doodled on his homework. They’re crude, and everyone has the wrong amount of fingers, and they’re also priceless archaeological artifacts recognizable throughout the world.

the only thing separating Onfim’s doodles and your MS paint Pokémon doodles is time. The only thing separating your old MS paint Pokémon doodles from being a priceless artifacts, thousands of years in the future is time. Your creations are already priceless artifacts. No matter what you do, don't ever, ever deny that. It isn’t blowing up your own ass, it’s artistic and anthropological fact.

The mundane and the supposedly unworthy are often the first things lost to time, and that’s why they’re so precious. That’s why artists who were before their time are scorned first only to be celebrated later. Do you think they knew that was going to happen?? What if they nuked it? Many probably did! But now that’s happening exponentially and instantaneously everywhere, WITHOUT the artist having to destroy their only copy—which makes it way easier and more dismissable.

Sometimes, If you’re revolutionary enough, people will make an effort to preserve your work, but recognized and thoroughly recorded work is rare compared to unrecognized and thoroughly recorded work.

Sometimes something is beloved enough that it would be impossible for it not to go down in history, but even then it isnt a guarantee, and it’s rare. But if van Gogh burned all of his paintings in a fit of despair before his death, we would have no van Gogh. Because he wasn’t respected as an artist in his time, but that wasn’t what defined the worth of his art. The people after him did, because his art was still there for them.

If you rip the art away, you're ripping a bit of the soul that has adhesive contact to it. If you belittle your art, you belittle the very real relationships and emotions and revisitations people have with the media. You defy the inherent worth and weight of a creation. you created. That's effort. It's passion. No matter how flippant or unskilled or worthless you think it is, it matters. Because at the end of the day, you could have chosen to make nothing at all, and you didn't.

•

Muting notifs

[thebreakfastgenie]

@angelboycult

This is so interesting because it didn’t come across as guilt trippy to me at all, and I hate reblog bait for that reason and wish I saw more pushback against it. Increasing the sample size actually does make the results more interesting. It has a function beyond giving the OP notes. And anyone who participates can view the results, not just the OP, so it has a wider benefit. I really do react to “reblog to increase sample size” the way I react to being asked to help with research. If people tell me to reblog a poll that’s just a meme, that feels more like reblog bait to me. But the ones that are clearly looking for actual results it just makes sense!

[hatsunemiku-official]

ABOUT ME-KU

(+ FAQ / VOCALOID-OFFICIAL MASTERPOST)

hi! im miku and welcome to Internet! you can do lots of fun things here. like look at my blog! ok im gonna hand the mic over to the omnipotent being that watches my every move

thanks miku. here are some things to remember before you send an ask:

- I am not associated with crypton, sega, or the official miku twitter! im just a guy making funny post

- miku lives in a computer. i probably won’t answer anything referring to her doing things in the real world, since saying “I am in a computer what are you talking about” is only funny the first five times

- I use my askbox as a jumping off point for jokes! if I don’t answer your ask it’s not because I didn’t like it, I just probably couldn’t think of anything funny to respond with

- I love receiving art!!!!!!! please send me your miku art!!!!!!! you can even send me a link to your art posted on your own blog and I’ll reblog it so you still get the notes!!!! I LOVE ART!!!!!! (also the ai training toggle has been turned off for this blog so. you’re safe here.)

- there are some things you should speak to a mental health professional about ( ie “i just can’t go on” “my life is terrible” ect) and you should not send these things to hatsune miku. i understand and empathize with you but I cannot help you and it’s very upsetting to receive things like this !

- anything written in parentheses for the most part is an ooc comment from the person running this blog (that’s me!). I don’t like doing this very often though, so if you have a question that can only really be answered ooc then please ask it off anon so I can respond privately!

- please remember I am just one person and sometimes I make mistakes! im a pretty busy person and also disabled so sometimes things slip through the cracks when im low energy. I do my best though so please let me know if you think i’ve made a mistake and i’ll do my best to fix it :]

- sometimes I like to reblog miku art from other people! please be respectful in these artists notes. I know this is a silly jokes blog but these people have not necessarily signed up to be goofed at on their posts. please be kind and keep the clowning to a minimum on posts that aren’t made by me!

- no TERFS allowed. hatsune miku loves trans women

FAQ

Q: can I make a vocaloid-official blog too???

A: yes!!!! anybody can!! please let me know if you do so I can add you to the masterpost and interact with you! I would check the masterpost first though to make sure there hasn’t already been a blog made for that character :]

Q: do you also run [insert other vocaloid-official blog]?

A: no! I can barely think of funny things to say here do you really think I could manage being funny on two blogs at once. I am friends with the people who run the teto, luka and una blogs so if our posts seem coordinated it’s because I asked them really nicely

Q: who runs this account?

A: secret

Q: miku what’s your opinion on [insert queer identity]

A: I don’t like answering these because I don’t want to open myself up to shitty comments and I can’t think of anything funny to say that wouldn’t just sound like “ally twitch streamer smiling at the camera and saying trans rights”. this blog is run by a queer person and miku is whatever you want her to be, if that helps.

Q: i made a vocaloid-official blog! how do I get added to the masterpost?

A: adding people to the masterpost has gotten really overwhelming for me so I won’t be doing it anymore. sorry! feel free to still make a vocaloid-official blog and interact with me if you want, I just won’t be updating the masterpost anymore. the current list will stay up as it is as sort of like. a memento or something.

Q: you posted about something that I don’t understand!!! why!!!!!

A: sometimes i like to post about my personal interests that don’t really have anything to do with hatsune miku because i cannot contain the mental illness. you will see the occasional post about bands or video games you do not and will not ever give a shit about. sorry. I can’t stop it. it has to happen.

Q: do you know anything about PJSK???

A: no <3

OFFICIAL VOCALOID-OFFICIAL MASTERPOST

these are my Official Friends! go say hi to them!!

🥖 @kasaneteto-official

🐟 @megurineluka-official

🐙 @otomachi-una-official

🍷 @hanakomeiko-official

💛 @neruakita-official

🍌 @kagaminelen-official

🍊 @kagaminerin-official

🍦@kaitoshinon-offical

🐢 @ryuto-official (RESURRECTED)

💜 @vflower-official

🥕 @gumi-official

🖤 @zatsunemiku-official

🍡 @tohokuzunko-official

🩹 @fukase-official

🔌 @utatanepiko-official

🐰 @yukari-official

🩵 @ringsuzune-official

⚓️ @oliverv3-official

🌷 @nekomurairoha-official

🥢 @vocaloidcul-official

☕️ @rukoyokune-official

🥂 @meiko-offical

👑 @galaco-official

🐱 @seeu-official

🌸 @meikahime-official

🪻 @meikamikoto-official

🍆 @gakupo-official

🎀 @utanekoe-official

🌹 @sakinemeiko-official

🔪 @mayuofficial

🛰️ @moonbase-alpha-tts-official

🍺 @yowane-haku-official

🪐 @ia-official

🎹 @namineritsu-official

☁️ @tone-rion-official

🎤 @maika-official

🌈 @kawaiine-official

🍏 @macnenana-official

🌻 @dex-official

💗 @garnetvocaloid-official

💿 @yohioloid-official

🌺 @zhizidongfang-official

🤍 @kokone-official

🐸 @vocaloidrana-official

🌟 @xingchen-official

🍎 @yuki-official

🌿 @fionetheutau-official

💫 @sfa2miki-official

[ffc1cb]

new art blog

the short version:

1. i made a new art blog: @cbge;

2. @ffc1cb will stay up as an archive.

the long version:

hi everyone. this announcement is somewhat late, since the blog in question has been up for a few months now, and i’ve already started posting art on it. the reason it took me so long to “reveal” it is because i’ve been trying to figure out whether a new blog is something i actually want, or if it's just me throwing darts at a board, trying to make myself feel better somehow.

i don’t know when precisely it all started, but ever since sometime last year i’ve been going through a hard time, both emotionally and creatively. i’m not sure whether being depressed is what made art harder, or art becoming harder is what made me depressed (a bit of both, i think), but lately, drawing has been a struggle. 

i’ve found myself having less and less energy for art, and this lack of energy resulted in poorer quality of drawings, which resulted in me feeling like i’m getting worse at it, despite my efforts. i knew i could make good art, art that i’m proud of - i’ve done so countless times before, - but somehow it felt like i just couldn’t anymore, like my hands forgot how to. nothing looked right. 

i’ve been trying to experiment. i’ve learned some new things, tried this and that - it was enlightening, to say the least, and even though i kind of liked how it looked, it made me feel a sense of displacement. i was at odds with myself, my art, and how i felt about it, when previously i was always in sync. i was making art, yes, and it looked nice, but it felt like it wasn’t mine.

i suppose part of it was also the growing lack of engagement, and i don’t mean likes and reblogs - i never particularly cared about those. they are all just numbers to me; dry and impersonal. what i’m talking about is actual, human interactions: personal thoughts in tags, asks, replies, etc. a conversation. 

i don’t mean to sound “old” or anything, but i remember when talking to artists online was more commonplace. my wife tells me it’s because the internet culture has changed over the years, that people have become more reclusive, less willing to be open with their thoughts, and she's probably right, but in my slump i find it hard to believe. somehow it feels like it’s my fault for being less “engaging”, for seeming unapproachable or perhaps intimidating. maybe it’s “just a skill issue”, maybe it’s because i have stopped churning out fanart for popular fandoms, maybe it’s because i refuse to torture myself emotionally by having an art account on twitter (i can’t fucking stand the place anymore; i still post nsfw art there, but only because it’s literally one of the only places on the internet that allows you to do so. i miss when you could post female presenting tits on tumblr).

i have always, ever since i started posting art on the internet back in 2012, done it for human connection. i wanted to talk to people, and have people talk to me. i wanted to inspire people with my art, and i wanted to bring them comfort. i wanted to elicit an emotional response, and have people tell me about it. it was one of the main reasons i drew in the first place; having lost that, i’ve been struggling to stay passionate about making art.

i miss being a small artist on the internet during the 2010s. i remember when i could make a post going, “hey everyone, how are you all doing today?” and it would not seem weird to people in the slightest. it is just me? does anyone else feel that way? am i too deep in my own head? the internet feels so unwelcoming nowadays, especially to artists. we are all just content machines; people scroll by our stuff, or maybe look at it for half a second and leave a like before scrolling away. i know it’s unfair to demand people’s attention, especially now when our lives are already so overwhelmed by everything - no one has the energy to pay closer attention; i myself am not immune to mindless scrolling. but it feels bad. i wish we were all sincere and enthusiastic again.

anyway (sorry for rambling. i hope i haven’t bored you to death), you might want to say, okay, but how is making a new art blog on a “dying” social platform going to help with any of that? the truth is, i don’t know. i just felt like i needed a change. 

i’ve been running this blog since 2016 (that’s almost 8 full years!). i feel incredibly attached to it, but at the same time, i feel it weighing me down. 

there are people who followed me years ago for one specific thing, still expecting me to post about said thing (i still find it mindboggling that some people follow artists for a specific fandom only, but that is a whole other matter for a whole other post that i will never write). a third, if not half, of my following are probably dead blogs. and with my current struggle with trying to regain the joy i once felt for making art, looking back at all the art i’ve done over the years makes me feel tired. i still love it all; it’s all very dear to me. i’m proud of it; looking at it makes me mourn my younger and more passionate self.

so i’ve decided to make a new blog, where i will let myself post whatever i want, in whatever stage of donness i feel like. maybe it will help me, somehow. maybe it won’t. but if you care about my art, if you want to keep following me on my artistic journey, i welcome you to join me there. similarly, feel free not to - no hard feelings.

thank you everyone for your support over the years; it matters a lot to me. i’m not planning to delete or private this blog; it will stay up, and i will still be reachable on here. i will still answer asks, if there will be any. i’m just not planning to post any art here anymore. this is it for my dear old friend ffc1cb.

i can be found in other places:

@cbge, as mentioned earlier,

@k0nstanta, an art blog dedicated solely to my wife and i’s ocs,

@inquisimail, a dragon age ask blog that has become my dragon age sideblog in general,

and multiple other blogs, none of which are art related, but feel free to ask, if you’re curious.

thank you very much for reading all of this. i hope you have a wonderful day.

[happypot0001]

⚠️The drawing base does not belong to me!! I found the base on Pinterest!! (It’s a bit hard to find the original owner and their proper credentials on Pinterest but just for now know that it wasn’t created by me!!) All characters don’t belong to me either!! They all belong to @just_a_carrot!! As extra precaution I’d like to say that 🥕s design wasn’t really original, it was very HEAVILY inspired by how some other artists draw 🥕!!⚠️

Uhhhhhhhh 🥕….Is this you?

Pffft this was so silly 😆 Lots of love to anyone reading!!

Phew!! Guess what!! Pot fiiiiinally posted!!!! Pffft uhhh idk if anyone noticed my disappearance but I guess I’ll explain anyway???? Uhhhh I mean I don’t really have much to say?? Sometimes I just don’t have the time to reblog or post anything ig HAH! I’ve been making a lot of doodles though!! I doubt I’ll be posting any of them though 😭 After Art Fight I wanted to start getting more into art and such because I really enjoyed making art for people and trying to make them happy!!!! So really I’m trying to spend the small amount of free time I have to fixing parts of my art that I don’t like (MOSTLY anatomy because…you know….I don’t like bodies and bodies don’t like me 😭) I’m glad I finally built up some art and can finally have something to post!! YIPPEEEEEE!!!

I love bases. I haven’t said it online before because I haven’t posted anything about making art based off of bases but there’s just something about them that I LOVE!! I saw this base QUITE a while ago but today was the day that I said I was actually going to draw it. The original plan was actually to just post the base and say “This is totally 🥕” or something like that HAH but in the end I realized…wait…I like bases so that I can draw them….WHY DON’T I JUST DRAW THIS ONE AS WELL????? And thats how the abomination was born hehe 😭

🥕s SONA(???) IS VERY CUTE!!!! I enjoyed drawing it heh!! I’m not used to drawing carrot people??? So I’m glad I got to test something!! Atleast I can also differentiate their sona from other peoples as well!! WHICH IS A GOOD THING!!! Also they may be an artist and a writer, but they also CODE AS WELL?? CODING ALL OF OW??? KFJLKSJDF 🥕 HAS A MANY OF TALENTS AND PROBABLY SUFFER A LOT BECAUSE OF IT 😭 KLDSFLKJDF ALL OF THEIR WORK IS AMAZING GAHHH PLEASE SHOW LOTS OF LOVE TO 🥕 PLEEEEEAASSEE!!! 🙏💖 I was going to color 🥕 in the drawing but for some reason I just thought it didn’t look good and I didn’t want to ruin the drawing anymore so I decided to keep it as it was!! KDSJFLKDJF I HOPE YOU LIKE HOW I DREW THEM!!!!

Hmmmm….welp not much more I can say!! Be aware for more posts I guess? There is still one post from Art Fight that I still have to share GRAH SORRY ⛵️!!!! I’LL BE SURE TO POST IT SOON!!! It has been a TERRIBLE HORRID week and I’m just excited for it to pass 😭 At least I had this to take my mind off of everything so I really do hope you enjoy it heh!!!

Lots of love to you 🥕 and anyone else reading once again!!! 💕💕

[hogwarts-legacy-confessions]

I need to get something off my chest, and just to be clear, I'm not targeting anyone specifically—this is more about the overall dynamic in the fandom.

I see a lot of posts saying things like, "I see you" (me = the author or artist who barely gets any attention), "you're validated," "your work is appreciated," even if no one directly says it. These vague posts are supposed to be comforting, but all they really do is highlight the gap between the people posting them and those of us feeling invisible.

If I really matter, show me. Not with generic phrases that are addressed to everyone and no one at the same time, but with actual actions: a comment, a reblog, even an anonymous message (if you’re shy). Show me that my work means something to you. Show it to me, just like you do for others or like others do for you.

Stop telling me that I'm seen and appreciated when no one even mentions my name in tag games, fic/art recs, hype blogs, or whatever else.

I think it’s hypocritical to say someone else is seen if you never do anything to actually show it.

I also see complaints about blogs disappearing, and people saying, "Don't let the haters get you down." But let me tell you: what really kills creativity in fandom spaces isn't the haters (they’re just a loud minority)—it’s the general indifference!

And then there’s the "Don’t get discouraged, keep interacting, and you'll find friends" stuff. Sorry, but it’s mentally exhausting to keep trying to connect with people when I’m always the only one trying to maintain that connection.

All of this just makes me feel even more inadequate and worthless. I don’t even want to promote my work anymore because I feel like I suck, to the point that I think I have no reason to be proud of what I create, given how little encouragement I get to keep sharing. And in that case, why even bother sharing my work if I’m the only one who cares about it and it never sparks any real interaction?

So if you really want to support creators, do it in a tangible and personal way. A simple comment, a reblog, an anonymous message—it can make all the difference. Those little actions mean more than any generic post that’s too vague for me to feel genuinely seen.

Don’t let creators feel invisible. That’s what kills the fandom!

(I know this topic has come up a lot, but it’s really weighing on me lately, and I feel like I’m not alone in this. I just needed to get it out)

👀

[a-substantial-trash-pile]

referencing the last reblog so i don’t end up writing a mcfreakin novel in the poor person’s notes:

because god it really sucks holding it all in. my therapist is cool but it’s hard to explain some of these things that bother me to someone who isn’t as “online.” so i resort to posting about the things on my tumblr because it’s the closest i can get to talking about things to someone else without feeling as much of the guilt. idk my mind is an anomaly. speaking of guilt im putting a “read more” here now because this dumb thing’s getting long and now im thinking about the things that have bothered me that idk if i handled right and i don’t want to subject others to seeing it if they don’t want to.

ALSO i think im going to tag my random posts that i make when im having sad bad brain times with “trash rants” so please feel free to block that tag as needed!

the following is essentially about being in a discord server that had both minors (15+) and adults in it and the complications i had in that environment.

one thing that happened a while ago involved a situation within a fandom discord server that idk how tf to even explain the situation to a professional without feeling like an idiot. an adult artist had a character that other people in the server liked. one time that person posted something they drew of that character topless with a message about how boobs shouldn’t be sexual which is absolutely right. but then the others + the artist started making comments about the character’s boobs that i became very confused with how to interpret. my brain was like “are the intent of these comments to be suggestive/sexual in nature or am i being an ignorant asshole for interpreting them as such and it’s because i’m being the problem and seeing boobs themselves as a sexual?” it was even more complicated because the people involved in making these comments were underage. it got even even more complicated because then some of these underage people started drawing the character topless with more comments that i didn’t know how to interpret. one of these people at some point told the original artist that they would privately dm them the more nsfw drawings they were doing. and everyone seemed to be having a good time going “BOOBS 👀👀” and all that and the channel was going crazy. but i was getting so uncomfortable and confused. and i felt like such an asshole. because i like boobs too and society shouldn’t see them as something inherently sexual. but the underage folk being involved made it so complicated for my brain. because if some random person not involved with the server looked in on what was happening, couldn’t it be seen as minors making and sending an adult nsfw art? even though it was very likely NOT the intention of the original artist.

what i ended up doing was bringing my concerns to the server owner, which was responded well to. a rule was put in place about sharing nsfw stuff. but i felt so guilty about it. i felt like i was being a party pooper and ruining people’s fun. i still wasn’t sure if i was even doing the right thing and if it was a problem within me and not with what happened. i was born into a conservative religious background so it was only when i became more independent and was allowed access to the internet that i got to start to unlearn the bad things that were taught to me. that background is something i’m trying so hard to separate myself from, but it’s something that i’m afraid will haunt me. was what happened in the server not actually a problem, and it was because my brain wants to do the bad society thing and interpret boobs as sexual? did i ruin everyone’s fun because i’m just an ignorant asshole who got uncomfy at something i shouldn’t be getting uncomfy about? i still don’t know. anyway, i ended up leaving the server because i just couldn’t enjoy it anymore. once in a while that original artist’s stuff pops up naturally in my feed because we’re still in the same fandom, but i can’t even look at their art or even their name without feeling all the confusion and guilt again. which i feel terrible about because they seemed like a really nice person and they’re a great artist! and i really don’t think they had any bad intentions at all when that situation in the server happened. but i just can’t do it.

that situation was the first moment i truly realized just how scary it is and careful you have to be when you’re in an online environment where adults and minors can freely interact. it’s easy to forget ages when you’re just a profile picture, and how easy it can be to influence someone young, and how dangerous that is, whether your intentions are good or not. it made me realize that i don’t want to be in that type of server where you’re directly interacting with underage people. because i’m a fucking mess and i don’t know what the hell i’m doing 90% of the time. i don’t want to somehow mess up a kid! even if it’s an accident i didn’t want to risk having that accident happen in the first place. it’s one of the reasons why i can’t bring myself to ever draw and post nsfw art anywhere either. i just feel so uncomfortable about it. to me it’s fine if others do it if they’re doing it in a safe way with the necessary precautions, and they shouldn’t feel shame in it! it’s just not something i feel comfortable doing myself.

jfc im so sorry if anyone actually read this far. this whole thing is so stupid. i wish i didnt let it bother me for so long. there are a lot of stupid things that my brain wastes time worrying about. maybe writing all this down will help me explain it to someone on the “outside” who can tell me how to stop it. i don’t know.

[fanby-fckry]

Ignore what I said about queuing this. I wrote the rest of this post when I was in a better headspace; now I’m petty and pissed off, so I dug into my queue and grabbed it.

Do you ever get hate from a stranger on a post and wonder… How did you even find this post??

Still getting used to the idea that fandom antis will apparently purposefully browse the tags of the thing they hate because it seems so genuinely pointless to me, but ok. I’m starting to understand that some people just choose to be angry, I guess.

But what blows my fucking mind is that I got hate on a vent post???

I don’t tag my vent posts with anything but my tags and content warnings. And I tag them #[topic] cw so it’s not like people are finding them in the main tags for that thing.

Reblogs are turned off, so it didn’t get thrown onto their dash by someone they follow that follows me and reblogged it in good faith.

So this person had to:

Choose a thing to be intentionally hateful about.

Choose to search not just for that thing, but instead to search #thing cw.

Find a post made 12 hours ago with 5 notes on it.

Decide, Yup, time to be an asshole!

I try to assume ignorance before malice. I try to assume someone’s having a bad day before I assume they went out of their way to be an asshole.

But I genuinely do not understand how you could accidentally stumble upon an unrebloggable vent post only tagged with cw tags.

How?? Why??? Wtf?? Why do you even care? Do you gain anything from this? Does this make you happy?

Or are you scrolling, seething about how much you hate, hate, hate a certain group of people? Are you clenching your jaw? Is your blood pressure rising? Do you need to take a break and do some breathing exercises?

Fucking go touch grass.

I’m writing this post for the same reason I made my other vent post: because it helps me process. Sometimes, I just need to scream into the void without bugging my partners or taking up time in my therapy sessions. And sometimes, my mutuals comfort and/or commiserate, which is nice.

But I genuinely cannot think of a world in which hate-scrolling an obscure tag would in any way positively impact my life or anyone else’s.

The last time I hate-scrolled, it was through a repost account in an attempt to go find all the original artists that the blog had stollen art from. I found one, and a few other artists had already been tagged, but eventually, I got so angry I couldn’t focus anymore.

So I stopped. I blocked the account. I moved on.

And the only reason I didn’t do that from the start was because it was genuinely helping someone for me to hate-scroll. It helped the artist I contacted. If I had been the first to get to a few other works I recognized, it would’ve helped those artists too.

I also didn’t seek out this blog; one of their stollen posts showed up on my dash and I went, Wow, that’s stollen art! Time to go fuck shit up!

Who does it benefit when you seek out other people’s posts when you know the content is upsetting to you, just to hate on them? What does that accomplish besides marginally increasing the suffering in this already shitty world?

Queueing this rather than posting it so that it won’t be obvious which vent post I’m talking about, but holy fuck this makes me feel things.

[justsomeoneunordinary]

Why You Should Reblog Creative Work

Here’s the thing about tumblr and reblogs: A lot of tumblr olds will tell you how reblogging is the only way for a post—especially when it comes to creative work such as art, gifs, fics etc.—to be seen by other people in the first place, as tumblr doesn’t have an algorithm.

This is not quite true anymore. Tumblr does have an algorithm and it’s a pretty well working one, too. I actually do use the ‘For You’ page every now and then and it always shows me a few posts that absolutely are of my interest. Hell, it even shows me untagged posts, it even shows added commentary in reblogs that are relevant to my interest.

So, saying “a like does nothing on tumblr” isn’t true anymore. As I’ve already seen, you don’t even necessarily need to tag your posts anymore (text posts at least—I don’t believe it’d work with images) to reach your audience.

But, and there is a But, capital letters and all that jazz, tumblr is first and foremost a blogging website. You all have blogs, and when you post here you blog. The reblogging function is a deeply ingrained, essential feature of this site, and when bloggers stop using it, creators will stop creating. A lot of them have already stopped—it’s one of the reasons why I for example, as well as a lot of other writers I know, don’t post fics on here anymore and merely share a quick link to AO3.

This is a blogging website and people are killing it by not using it the way it’s supposed to be used. Yes, you can, technically still reach your audience even if you’re not being reblogged at all, but apart from the fact that a lot of tumblr olds don’t even look at the ‘For You’ page, nothing will spread creative work as fast as reblog chains will. Nothing will make sure your work will be seen at all, except when people reblog it.

Not to mention that the ‘For You’ page (or the ‘Based on Your Likes’ function which is mostly garbage unlike the ‘For You’ page tbh) will never be able to show you older work that could interest you too, and bring the creator joy by getting attention on something that’s already years old again. Only sharing the work and spreading the joy will work.

Also, because likes were pretty useless until recently, most tumblr users don’t see likes as in “hey, I liked this!” but more in a “I saw this” manner. Hell, that’s how I use the like button. Sure, I leave a like on things I do like (I wouldn’t leave it on a post I dislike, that makes no sense), but the like is mostly meant for me to remember I saw this already. To show appreciation I reblog/queue the post. Because that’s what reblogging to most of us means. It means “hey, I like this and I appreciate it and I want to share it so others see this amazing thing too!”

If you leave only a like and no reblog follows it eventually, to most of us it means “yeah, I liked this but not enough to have it on my own blog and share it with others”—and that’s discouraging as fuck. It’s like saying that the work we created isn’t good enough.

Obviously, you don’t have to reblog every art/gifs/fics/etc. you see if they don’t even interest you. But naturally, you wouldn’t leave a like on something you don’t like either, would you?

There’s, of course, also always this small portion of Big Artists who claim that reblogs aren’t that important and likes are just as appreciated, but those are usually the kind of artists who reach hundreds of reblogs, get lot of commentary on the work, kind asks and so on and so forth. Maybe once people stop interacting with their work they would change their tune, but as long as they don’t struggle with receiving appreciation for the creative work that took them hours and was created with passion and love, their opinion doesn’t really matter, as they’re in a huge minority with that view anyway.

(I am talking about creative work specifically here because honestly, no one gives a fuck if you reblog shitposts or not, as they don’t take even remotely the same amount of time as a single art piece does for example, and aren’t made with the same passion either. Ironically though, shitposts are the kind of posts that get the most reblogs anyway.)

At the end of the day, it’s really not that hard to reblog other people’s work. You don’t have to leave a comment in the tags/reblog either, as not everyone has the time and spoons to do so—I do promise you though that if you leave kind commentary underneath a creative work, you will make OP’s day—there’s even a quick reblog resp. a quick queue option on mobile and desktop, which takes you just as long to click as the like button. Literally just a second.

You can also always make (a) sideblog(s) for anything you don’t want to mix with the other things you post/reblog.

And it doesn’t matter if you have no followers or not many who would see the things you reblog either. OP doesn’t know that—all they do know is that someone appreciates the creative work they posted. And a reblog even with no commentary will always be more meaningful than a like.

Maybe it’s not important anymore on tumblr to get reblogs to reach an audience, but the reblogs are still necessary to keep the community alive. And by discarding the reblog function we’re effectively killing that community until there won’t be any creative work anymore and well… probably only memes and shitposts on here.

So instead of getting all prissily and calling creators “entitled” for asking for reblogs, as if it is such a hardship to click the button, you should maybe ask yourself why you’re so reluctant to reblog work that took hours to create in the first place, hm?

[roostertuftart]

I really am getting frustrated with how little artists are being supported in this fandom. It’s frustrating to see talented artists who have notes only in the dozens because a ton of people liked the art but only one or two people reblogged it. And I don’t think you should be pressured to reblog every single art piece you see, but I am begging you to consider being a bit more lenient in art you will boost??

Art on the internet is dying in some ways. We are losing the websites that catered to our work one by one- Deviantart, Instagram, Twitter, many more. Tumblr is among them, but at the very least it is not the site’s algorithm that is against us, and there are plenty of active people, and yet still, no one actually wants to put in the effort of supporting the creators they like or helping them feel seen, and I feel like at least to a degree that is a major problem specifically in this fandom- Because we have an active fan base on this app, and I can see how many people flock to funny text posts I’ve reblogged, but my art and other people’s art will continue to go entirely ignored and it’s becoming increasingly frustrating because despite the influx of new people on this app, I’ve seen a DECREASE in interaction somehow.

I don’t know for what reason you would want to follow me but for art, for my own and the work of others that I reblog, so can you please actually support it instead of looking at it for half a second and then moving on with maybe a like if we are lucky? Because I’m exhausted of trying to make work that will actually be valued by anyone and other artists have been saying the same things for months, and although I’ve tried to be nice and not too forward about my frustration with this, I’m getting to be at my limit. I don’t want to post art that much anymore. Many other people don’t want to post art much more. What’s the point if no one shows any care?

[skypiea]

Wait so are you pro-AI art? I'm confused.

it’s not a pro or anti issue to me. There are sometimes things in life that are multifaceted, complicated issues, and taking either extreme will make you look rather silly. I assume you sent this because of the last post I reblogged, which I recommend taking a moment to read, as it would outline anything I would say in this ask. I’ll paraphrase: “AI art” is a very broad term, and most issues I do have with the application of it stem from people approaching it in a very capitalist mindset (thinking about ways to cut costs by cutting out specialized workers through the use of automated tools, something that happens in many fields beyond just art).

Also, I am of the opinion that art is not some sacred holy untouchable calling. I think art is something someone produces—trained artists painting huge canvases, kids on DeviantArt using anime bases, sculptors repurposing found items into their compositions. Collages broadly are considered artistic, as they repurpose found images and text in interesting ways. My point is that “art” is an incredibly broad spectrum, and something widely considered within the capabilities of any person.

Basically, all I ask is for people to make their own opinions regarding the topic. If you come out the other side with your opinion still being “I don’t care for AI created art”, that’s completely fine. But if you look in the notes of, for example, that post that’s a rather cubist interpretation of a city street, the notes are completely full of “ewwww ai art 🤢” and “boo I thought this was cool but it’s AI”. Like 30 of those comments. And they’re only there because those commenters were told by tumblr that they’re supposed to express disgust and outrage at the mere notion of AI. Because I believe when a more measured person sees something they don’t like, their inclination is to “scroll away” from it so they don’t have to see it anymore. Versus average Tumblr reaction, which is loudly proclaim the side you’re on so everyone knows you have the “correct” opinions. Just how I see it.

Personally, I’m quite interested in the potential of AI image generation. I get less interested the closer it gets to mimicking established styles, because what I enjoy is when an image is outputted with such a confusing and nonsensical composition that it’s likely something a human wouldn’t have ever created, on account of not approaching image creation in the same way as a computer. And please, do not take me expressing interest in the subject as complete and utter defense of all aspects of the current AI debate.

TLDR: I’m neither “pro” nor “anti” AI art, It’s a nuanced issue, and I try not to let moral outrage dictate my opinions. If you don’t feel the same way, that’s fine, because different people can have different opinions.

[rubberduckyrye]

Why I will never RB your Art if you say “Don’t Tag as X” (And why I will probably block you for it)

Okay so I’ve seen this. So many times in the tags, so many times on art posts that were otherwise good and awesome that I would have reblogged--but then I saw the “Don’t tag as X” thing, and rolled my eyes and chose not to RB the art. In some instances, I even block the artist.

Most of the time, this is in relation to ships and art that can be interpreted as shippy but the original artist doesn’t want their work to be interpreted that way. Which is the first red flag for me--art is meant to be interpreted in a million different ways. No two people are ever going to interpret any kind of art the same way as another person. So trying to control how people interpret your work is at best, a fools errand.

However that’s more of a petty reason above all else--the main reason why “Don’t tag as X” is a huge problem is, in relation to how people interpret things differently, is that no matter what you do, people WILL interpret your art in a certain way. A certain way that may involve being a trigger for them.

So let’s say I see an art piece that is... let’s say it’s for Character B and C. The artist asks me not to tag my potential reblog as BC. Let’s say I decide to oblige by the Artists request and don’t tag it as BC.

So let’s say we have Follower X. X used to heavily ship BC to hell and back, but because of harassment, they can no longer even look at B and C together without thinking about the harassment they faced. It’s a proper trigger for them. It’ll give them panic attacks upon seeing it.

Now let’s say we have Follower Y. Y never really shipped the ship itself, but their ex shipped it a LOT. Their ex was abusive. They associate the ship with their ex, so the ship is a trigger for them--just seeing B and C together triggers them. They get sick to their stomach upon reminders and avoid the ship for their mental health.

Follower Z is a bit different. They just don’t like the ship, and want it tagged for blacklisting purposes. Vague art of B and C being cute and cuddly included.

So now here’s a problem with “Don’t tag as X.” The artist doesn’t want me to tag their B and C art as BC. Except three followers really need that ship tagged as BC.

“But it’s not ship art!”

It doesn’t matter if it is, or isn’t “ship art.” Well what you mean is “romantic ship art” anyway, so any and all platonic art is a form of ship art, but I digress. It doesn’t matter if it was intended as ship art or not. People will interpret it as ship art regardless.

“You can make blacklist tags for those followers!”

No, I can’t. Not for everyone. I never said I personally knew X, Y, or Z as my followers. I can’t tag what I don’t know--and if I tried to tag every post with “(Follower) don’t look” I’d have a bajillion tags like that. It’s not practical.

“But tumblr makes you see tags in your activity feed and I don’t want to see people tagging my art as X!”

Oh well. Sorry, but I can’t really feel a lot of sympathy for people who are making it more difficult to allow others to curate their own experiences.

“But it triggers me to see my art tagged as X!”

That’s a right shame. However, you should be aware that even if people RB your art without the tag, people will still consider your art in a way you don’t like. This is something to discuss with your therapist or peers, because trying to police how others interact with your work is not it, fam.

“I’m still going to say don’t tag as X.”

Then be prepared to get blocked. I’m not obliged to RB your art, and I don’t want to see your art anymore if I can’t reblog it safely and add tags that I think are necessary.

“But you’re hurting artists by not RBing their work! You should just respect their boundaries!”

I am respecting their boundaries, but nice straw-man. Me not RBing their art is a form of keeping to that artist’s boundary. “Don’t tag as X”? Then I won’t reblog it, meaning I won’t tag it as X. Congrats, boundary respected. The artist might not like it, but that’s just how it is.

If they want their work to be seen by the mass public, they have to get comfortable with the idea that people are going to misinterpret their art and intentions behind their art, and that’s okay. If they are not at that stage of acceptance, they aren’t ready for it.

Anyway, that’s my Hot Take of the day. Brought to you by someone who’s seen “Don’t tag as X” one too many times.

[queenimmadolla]

Someone asked pinkrelish if the reader in her series was white, cause she rbed a bunch of fan art from different artists that depict reader as white, and someone sent in an ask saying the first anon might have gotten the wrong idea due to the fanart

https://www.tumblr.com/pinkrelish/717773696352288768/miss-mouse-is-white?source=share

https://www.tumblr.com/pinkrelish/717776873301721088/most-of-if-not-all-the-artworkmoodboards-ive?source=share

https://www.tumblr.com/pinkrelish/717787746591244288/prev-anon-here-youve-done-a-great-job-in-keeping?source=share

But then a writer friend of theirs that had previously made a collage/moodboard type thing for them misinterpret the ask, thinking it was attacking the writer as well as the collage they made and kind of went on a rampage to “defend” their friend, made a post about how people need to get off anon and say something to have a conversation. When another poc user tried to reason with them in the comments of their post, saying the asks weren’t attacking anyone (I mean read them for yourself) they kept almost intentionally misinterpreting what they were saying, putting words into their mouth, told them that if they don’t like art/visuals that depict white readers, to simply block the people making them and it won’t be a problem, etc, then blocked them. Then they made a post about how they’re gonna stick up for their friends and “block bullshit” and kept reiterating that moodboards/fic headers/artworks are all usually self-inserts in a way and we can’t blame anyone for the fact that these things are so white washed. So yeah, that’s what happened 💀 the person who got the asks is quite a big writer so that’s prob why you got the asks too.

I almost wasn’t gonna respond to this, but that’s a bystander effect and I refuse to participate in that anymore lol.

Okay, so Pinkrelish is an incredibly talented writer, and I’ve been following along with her works before I even knew they had a tumblr! They have this gymnast!reader fic that I LOVE so much, which I came across on ao3 like last fall. I don’t know her personally, but I do know I have witnessed her reblog and support all the fanart she is sent and tagged in. We of course are aware that fanart is usually the artist self-inserting into the non-descriptive reader insert, which is 100% appropriate! That’s why we write, so whomever our audience is can see themselves in the works!

Obviously, POC have a lot harder of a time getting their art interacted with, but Alyson would support any form of fanart sent her way, it’s an honor as a writer to see people depicting themselves in what we write.

I’m not gonna touch too much on the other writer right now, because I don’t know a lot of the situation nor who it even was and I’m dyeing my hair rn so I can’t look around, but I hope they’ve been made aware this was not an attack and a counter attack was completely unnecessary. I do think it’s disparaging for POCs to voice things that concern them only to be shut down in a matter such as the one you described (because it looks like Pinkrelish responded positively, and in my opinion wonderfully, in terms of acknowledging the struggles of POCs on this hellsite so whatever aggression you said was on display from someone else was actually unneeded).

I will always encourage other people of color to speak up, because on anon or off anon (because I know that anon would have been clearly brutalized had they spoken from their account as implied, and so long as what is being said is mot hate), what you have to say matters. This is a place for conversation and we all need to be a little more open minded.

Alyson loves everyone though, so if you’re a POC and you’ve got some beautiful ass TYP fanart you’ve been afraid to post in this fandom for obvious reasons (and withholding from me), she’s the type of writer who would love to see it :)

(P.s., most writers would love fanart SO POST IT PLS)

[writing-for-life]

There are so many reblogs that resonate, but this one probably resonates most:

The whole purpose of art (and fandom!) is connecting over shared humanity and something we love.

Community and connection.

I'm not saying that doesn't still exist in small pockets because it does, and I feel lucky to have my little corner on here. But by and large, people treat creators as conveyor belts that deliver the goods, and that goes for ALL creators: fanfic writers, fan artists, meta writers, gif creators etc etc.

Fandom has turned into a consumer culture.

And no matter how often we say that Tumblr or Ao3 aren't Instagram, people either don't get it or don't care. There’s nothing inherently wrong with giving a like—I do it, too. But if it becomes our sole form of engagement, something is off. And you just have to look at the notes of any type of fan-creation to see that’s become an issue (I’m specifically talking about the like-to-reblog-ratio here, and if you look one step further: At the notes that actually engage meaningfully, aka comments and reblogs with comments).

We’ve seemingly turned scared stiff to talk to other people, or connect in a meaningful way. Or we simply don't want to talk to other people while still wanting the goods. Both are bad in their own way; both hint at society and education having failed. The solution is not to put our heads in the sand and accept it—neither one nor the other. Unfortunately, people do that because they are not willing to have any type of conversation that makes them uncomfortable anymore. Because “fandom is fun and not activism.” But the problem with that is that it’s usually said by the people who get their needs met, and it is a thought-terminating cliché of sorts (and also often used to control the conversation when things get pointed out that make fandom a space that isn’t the same for everyone). You don’t grow if you stay in your comfort zone of, “But I’m shy,” “But there’s nothing I can do.” Nothing ever changes if people go, “But I’m just here for fun,” “But I don’t have the energy”, “But I don’t have the time,” “But I don’t like to stand up for these things for fear of conflict,” but then they turn round and still want the goods. You can’t build fandom community on, “Yeah, you’re right in principle, but not me.” It’s always a, “BUT…”

And when creators say something, they usually get the, “Awww, just create for yourself boo, that's all that matters”-treatment, and some people don’t even notice or care how minimising that is to every artist’s wish to connect over something meaningful. You don’t need to tell us to just create for ourselves—we do that already anyway. When we say the purpose of art or analysis or what-have-you is for connection over shared humanity, we mean it. It’s quite frankly patronising to then suggest otherwise.

I will not tire of saying it: Art (and fandom by extension) is not a monologue. It’s connection over shared humanity. If people don’t get that and just want to stuff their faces with cake until they’re sick of it and then move on to the next “treat”, we’ve already lost.

Tell creators about how their art makes you feel. Share their stuff (and if you do: for crying out loud, give credit! So people can connect with the artist). And stop turning fandom into a vast ocean where everyone is their own little island…

current fan creation landscape is kinda like if you went to a party with a homemade cake and everyone takes a slice and silently thumbs up at you with no attempt to start a conversation except for occasionally some guy sits in the corner with a tape recorder critiquing the cake as though he was a restaurant critic and another guy is handing the cake to an uber driver like "yeah i need you to find a restaurant that makes cake like this so i can have more of it" and the only person that's talked to you in 30 minutes is a very sweet little guy who was like "hey i liked your cake" and then ran away apologizing for bothering you the moment you said thank you.

[feelingunfulfilled]

I’m starting to get in my head again, because I got suddenly shaken by this feeling of just…missing out? Not feeling like I’m being included in something that I wish I could geek about? It’s absurd, and not even that big of a deal. Hypothetically I can join in and start posting my own silly art doodles I make up for fandoms and my original characters without worrying about the judgement of others but…..I still don’t feel like I’d have the confidence to do that, as much as I wish that could be the case

I love seeing this small community of people who are unashamed to post about their fictional crushes and share that enthusiasm with others, being able to freely make content about their self-inserts and the silly romantic interactions…and man I’m glad that I’m able to at least observe all that creativity and social bonding from the sidelines. But sometimes I look back at my own doodles (which are VERY sloppy in comparison to others and more like rough outlines of narrative story points) and start to feel like it wouldn’t be the same…wouldn’t be welcomed into that community with as much enthusiasm. And the thing is I don’t even know if that’s what I want? I’m aromantic and asexual. Fictional crushes are few and far between. I want to be a part of a group of artistic story-driven daydreamers who share the same admiration for a comfort character of mine and yet, I don’t think I’d be able to bring the same level of excitement to the table. And even if I did, I’m worried it would come across as weird acting so friendly to these online strangers and expecting to form some sort of friendship out of that

I guess that’s the main point of contention. That I’m growing worried that I’m unable to keep long lasting close relationships in person with all the changes going on. Maybe that’s the actual feeling that’s making me feel out of place. And I just really want to feel a part of something whilst posting whatever the hell I want to when it comes to sharing my art, interests, and what makes me exited. But something about how it’s presented makes me feel like I’d just be trying too hard? I don’t think I know how to post just for my own sake anymore, since I’m used to just rebloging things and keeping myself on the down low. I love supporting other artists. But I’m getting increasingly less vocal, and allowing them to form relationships with other users instead of getting involved to the point of making an actual friendship. Because I’m worried an online friendship wouldn’t last anyways? Even if that’s ridiculous because I’m active frequently

I have an issue with sharing information about myself. I used to make an effort to reach out to others, but that’s dwindled in recent years once again. Especially online I rarely ever initiate contact….which as you can imagine, leaves less room to socialize and make connections despite wanting to. Because when I see users interacting and sharing fandom posts with their friends and whatnot I start to feel even more out of place and distant…and I wish I had that or could be that sometimes. But hey…..guess until I make the effort to be more open, engaging, and post for my own sake that likely won’t happen

[winchester-reload]

As sort of a follow up to the ask about artists trying to break the perfection mentality.

How do I, as a non-artistic person, most effectively encourage artists who see the flaws instead their amazing talent?

I have a fandom friend who is hella gifted. You've seen their work, know their name just by looking at it, and they create such gorgeous art. But they also are hypercritical of their work, and while I understand that (I feel the same way about stringing words together), I also just want to point at every single thing that makes their art so amazing to me and be like, "You did this thing that I can't do, and it's a such an extraordinary gift, and I can never thank you enough for sharing it. Have my non-existant first born as a sign of my devotion."

This friend has admitted they don't really want to create in this medium anymore, which I respect and won't push back on. I just wish they could *feel* how much their art touches me.

For other artists, though, how do I help? I know that positive feedback is always welcome, but sometimes I wonder if there's something else artists find useful when it comes to reactions.

(P.S. Rainbow Mohawk Cas is, and always will be, one of my favorite pieces of your artwork, and you could try to pry him from my cold, dead hands, but you'd fail.)

Okay, I’m gonna try to answer this but it’s gonna be difficult for me because, full disclosure, I’m getting through a huge art dip right now.

The reality is, this issue is as varied and complex as the artists you’re kinda asking me to group up and speak for here. So let me be clear, I can only speak for myself and my own experience with fanart, an online presence within a fandom, and how those two things impact creativity, motivation, and self-perception. But know at the same time that my experience is not going to be exactly like other peoples’.  

First, as you noted, there are always going to be the obvious things people can do to help promote their favorite artists: 

Reblog their posts

CREDIT THEIR WORK ELSEWHERE

 Likes

Comment

Commission them

Don’t steal

Be respectful: refrain from criticism or personal biases on their posts <—Are you allowed to have your own opinion? YES! Do you need to barf it all over their comment section? No. If you don’t agree with something they made, go make your own art. Can’t make your own art? Then go supply positive support to artists who do create the things you enjoy. *Some of you may be surprised to learn that we do read comments, tags and reblogs. No matter how *big* or *small* you perceive us to be. So if you leave some shit in your tags, we’re probably gonna see it. 

But now here comes the complicated part. 

The thing about fanart creation is, it’s very much a labor of love. The time, effort, and mental energy required to make, post, and manage the feedback may often outweigh any external benefits of making the art (income, accolades, fandom celebration, etc). So there'll always come a point when artists hit a wall and need to draw on their own self-motivation. This happens over and over again, not once or twice. It’s kind of like a wave that ebbs and flows with the mood of the fandom. And with Supernatural specifically, you can imagine that wave is a little more like a typhoon: sunny beach moment one day, drowning in inescapable toxicity the next. So it doesn’t surprise me to hear you have a fandom friend who might be done creating in this subject. Does it make me sad though? Yes, incredibly. We’ve had a myriad of talented artists throughout the years that’ve since moved on and I mourn every one of them. But I also support their decision to do so. If the current subject is no longer a source of inspiration, it becomes impossible to create for it. 

I do hope your friend is still creating though.

However, since you mentioned hyper-criticality, I’m afraid they might not be. The thing is, I don’t have a solution for ridding yourself of hyper-criticism as an artist. It may sometimes appear as though I do because I have a lot of art out, but that’s just an illusion. The reality is, I don’t like most of my art. And, like your friend, I’m often hyper-critical of it. The difference is, I post it anyway because I decided I don’t need to like it. I just have to make it. And if I make it enough, I build the skills I need to, every once-in-a while, accomplish something I do like. And everything in between those pieces are just stepping stones. Which is why I always finish a piece of art and tell myself “it is what it is, on to the next.” That kind of thinking has helped me move past what might otherwise be a immovable obstacle. 

So, if I have any advice for your friend, it’s that. You don’t have to like your art. You just have to make it, and keep moving forward. 

This is where audience interaction becomes so incredibly important. Artists always get caught up in their own head about what they’re making, but the positive feedback can help us see it through your eyes. And it isn’t everything, because tbh we’re always getting our feet caught on mental hurdles and faceplanting in our own puddles of self-loathing, but audience support can get us up again, refill our wells of motivation, and help reaffirm our goals.

I mean, I can honestly say I would not be here without the support I get. But it’s even difficult for me at times, and I’m fully aware that I benefit from much more support than many other skilled artists do.  

So, @eyesofatragedy67, all of this is to say I do believe your friend knows how much their art means to you, just as I know how much my art means to other people--even the pieces I don’t like. It’s just that sometimes it’s hard to get out of our heads about it. Ultimately, it’s something we have to overcome ourselves, but that impossible task is made infinitely easier with a kind, supportive audience base. So, you keep doing what you’re doing, and I’m gonna send a little nod to your artist friend: I miss you already, but I can’t wait to see where you find your new source of inspiration.