#there's a reason i haven't talked to any of them in years and it's not because i don't like them

[shorthaltsjester]

obsessed with the fact that bell's hells won that fight explicitly because of their reliance on the gods. imogen and laudna both vocally saying 'thank you matron' at the beginnings of that combat as they use new skills or spells they've refreshed, orym wielding his sword, braius wielding his divine power, the entire party instilled with a hero's feast prepared by a cleric of the wildmother, imogen using power granted by the arch heart to bring down predathos -- an entity that has been described as welcoming her home, offering a womb she has longed to return to, her as its kin -- in imagery evoking the moment where the gods too decided to turn their backs on their home when faced with the monstrosity they were tied to, that they'd help bring about (something something, the arch heart gave mortals magic and imogen gave predathos its vessel). and the fact that bell's hells has slowly grown more reliant on the idea that predathos does not hunger for mortals -- something they in fact scoffed at when it came from liliana and ludinus' mouths -- predathos took several of them in his maw and tried to consume them.

viewing the story as one of a group of people predominantly blinded to the reality of their situations by the fog of their traumatized feelings -- as i've chosen to do for the sake of my sanity listening to them go on and on about gods that never gave them a lick in the same breath that they complain that the gods have too much power -- it is so extremely poetic that orym cut down ludinus with a sword blessed by the wild mother only for bell's hells to retread the path ludinus set up for himself. it is extremely ironic for a group of people who have implicitly raised complaints about the inherent manipulation that comes with the god's existence to come up with a plan that is explicit manipulation, demanding the gods become mortal or die [which to be clear, extremely interesting plan with interesting consequences that would be compelling to see! absolutely dogshit reasoning skills and moral assessment. but it is continually ASTOUNDING to me that a campaign that gets treated by some as the height of critical role's sociopolitical philosophical exploration features so many PCs who struggle (and not in the fruitful, developmental way but in the head-in-hands, can this student talk to the prof during office hours so I don't have to feel the second hand embarrassment of them making it obvious they haven't ever attended a previous lecture or done the class readings way) with ideas found in any first year philosophy course].

and to be clear this is not me devaluing the role of bell's hells in actually fighting the fight -- but all they've done is the same thing the gods were already doing, keeping predathos sealed, except now its in a volatile-at-best mortal who is on borrowed time re: being lost once again to its power. the only suggestion the hells have that this might be a justified and right course of action is the support of two gods -- one who has proven themself to be okay with the idea of death until it actually arrives before and the other one who is the only being on record who actually chose to be a deity -- out of a much larger pantheon, and their personal inclinations to agree with the ideology of a man who they have claimed to ardently disagree with but it turns out that was just because of his methods, I guess. scattershotting catalysts for change and hoping that change results in a Better World just. on its own (almost like. idk. fate) that you haven't even suggested practical (I'd even take theoretical ones atp) methods to achieve beyond Get Rid of a bunch of beings who are involved in actually extreme amounts of metaphysical and magical infrastructure isn't actually a course of action, its a course of chaos, and that is in fact worse than things staying the way they are if 'the way things are' that you keep referring to has only been shown to, currently, be that you and your friends feel sad and a little miffed that the gods you haven't offered anything to are only willing to do things for you when you serve them. unlike you, a group notorious for the way you do things for people you don't know without asking anything in return (this is sarcasm, if that wasn't clear).

anyway, I will continue to be frustrated by the lack of grounding for either (a) bell's hells having actually incisive and contextualized criticisms of the gods (either their own or from the actual mouths of the 'little guys' they are allegedly fighting for) or (b) more engagement with the fact that bell's hells as a party are not interested in making the morally right choice, they are at Best looking for a morally neutral choice. that said, if I ignore the actual story c3 has portrayed, the last few episodes have been a great wrap-up to a story about how singleminded trauma can make you and how that can lead you to place where there's no longer any Good choices to make, only potentially satisfying ones, where the question of who to satisfy takes the reigns over what is best.

[samuraionyourmom]

Now that the first chapter of the Stormbringer manga has released, I'd like to take a moment to analyze a previous headcanon with the new context the new manga has given us and perhaps put it into a different perspective than just Dazai being a stinky bastard man.

So, you all know about the headcanon of Dazai sneaking into Chuuya's apartment and using/wasting all of his fancy hair products. You know it, you love it. But let's take a closer look at it, specifically regarding the context this page gives us:

In this panel alone, it becomes very clear to us that Chuuya truly has no sense of self. If you thought Dazai's shipping container was bad, this ain't exactly any better. This isn't a home. It's barely a living space. It's a place of residence at best. It has a bed, a small desk, and a vault with a shower and rows and rows of pristine black suits. There's absolutely nothing in this place that would tell you that a 16 year-old boy lives here.

Because Chuuya has no idea what a 16 year-old boy does. He doesn't know who he's supposed to be or what he's supposed to like or how to decorate his space with his own personality. Because he doesn't know what that personality is.

This is the overarching theme of Stormbringer in which Chuuya is trying to figure out who he exactly is, whether that's a human or a clone or whatever. If you haven't read it already, I highly recommend it if you like Chuuya even a little bit, especially now that the manga is releasing.

Now, back to the headcanon. Say Chuuya does have some fancy hair products in that little vault shower of his. I mean, it is perfectly reasonable to assume he would be expected to look presentable while he manages the jewel trading business, the part of the Port Mafia he had been put in charge of. He wouldn't want to embarrass the Port Mafia, after all. I wouldn't put it past him to have such products in his possession because he feels he's expected to look good for the sake of the mafia's reputation.

But that's the thing. It's all about expectations. Chuuya, as a person, doesn't really care about his appearance because he hasn't had a chance to be himself yet. He was found by the Sheep at around 8 years old when he didn't even know what bread was. Ever since then, he was expected to be their leader and guard dog. But when he joined the Port Mafia, he had a new set of expectations, ones he's still adjusting to.

Chuuya, up to this point, hasn't a chance to be himself. He doesn't know what kind of fashion he likes or how he likes to style his hair. People keep pushing their expectations onto him, and he feels like the only option he has is to try his best to comply with them in order to not be alone. Check out his character song, "Darkness My Sorrow," for this reason.

So, Chuuya may have some fancy hair products that he keeps not because he personally enjoys hair care, but in an attempt to try to meet the expectations set up for him by being in the Port Mafia.

And then Dazai sneaks into this sad excuse of a living situation (not that he can talk) and wastes them. And Chuuya is pissed. He assumes that it's just Dazai trying to set him up for failure or trying to get him to embarrass himself in some way.

But here's the thing. The hair products' existence in his space is solely because of the expectations put upon him. They're not a part of Chuuya as a person. But his anger towards Dazai is. The emotions Chuuya feels are something that is a part of him innately. Something he can look towards as evidence of his personhood, as silly as it is.

This infuriating little habit that Dazai has is a way to prove Chuuya's humanity. To show that he doesn't need to be so concerned with the expectations of others and that he can focus on himself, whoever that may be. He can focus on being the Chuuya that Dazai hates so much instead of yielding to the will of others.

This is similar to the way Dazai manipulates the situation to get the Sheep turn on Chuuya. It's his way of showing that these people never considered Chuuya their family, and they eventually would have turned on him if push came to shove. It's weird and manipulative and convoluted, but that's Dazai for you. He is incapable of showing care in a normal way, apparently.

So, I view this headcanon in a new light. Dazai is always certain of Chuuya's humanity and personhood, even when Chuuya himself is not. He shows that in incredibly frustrating and confusing ways, like stealing and wasting the soap that is a representation of the expectations that are crushing Chuuya and his sense of self under its weight. Chuuya's anger, his threats of violence against Dazai for his petty heist, those are all Chuuya. They are his own thoughts and feelings, and no one can take that from him.

In conclusion, Chuuya needs to learn that he can be who he wants and be given the time to figure out who he is, and Dazai needs to learn how to flirt like a normal person instead of doing... whatever he's attempting to do right now.

[genderqueerdykes]

I'm transfemme now, but back when I thought I was a guy or demi guy, I left tumblr years ago because of all the posts I saw that amounted to "men bad even if not cis", so... I kinda relate to what you and your followers feel, in my own way I guess.

I just wanted to say that I'm sorry this is still happening, and I'm so so glad you're calling it for what it is. Is there a way to support you?

Or more generally for transfemmes to fight transandrophobia as a whole? We have enough hate from the outside without it coming from within!

thank you so much for taking the time to send this ask i really appreciate it! i've actually had other transfemmes point this out, so thank you for giving me another chance to talk about it!

i'm sorry this happened to you. i would've left too, in your shoes. people don't understand that demiguys aren't just trans men or afab people. that still made you queer, but it didn't matter because you thought you were a guy. that's just so cruel. i can't think of any reason why that would be good or productive in any way. you should've been given time and a space to question. you should've been able to talk to ther people who understood you. you should've been able to take the time to figure yourself out

i've tried to point this out: man hating hurts transfemmes. a lot of transfemmes used to be cis men or another type of man. you need to give them time to question. we're forcing transfems to hurt up and transition right now or else they're not welcome. it's viewed as okay to be rude as hell to transfemmes who haven't fully pieced it together yet, never transition transfemmes, butch transfemmes, transfemmes who cant transition for safety reasons and so on. i don't get it

I just wanted to say that I'm sorry this is still happening, and I'm so so glad you're calling it for what it is. Is there a way to support you? Or more generally for transfemmes to fight transandrophobia as a whole? We have enough hate from the outside without it coming from within!

thank you so much for asking this! this is so kind i really appreciate it, it means a lot! i get a lot of important questions but i really like this one!

honestly most importantly is telling other transfemmes to unlearn their toxic masculinity & internalized misogyny. these two traits are rampant in certain transfemme spaces and it's really devastating. it's why this is happening to begin with. very specific transfemmes still have a lot of internalized toxic masculinity and hold trans men up to that standards. if they're not manly enough they get misgendered. a lot of transfemmes have internalized misogyny and instantly think that AFAB people and people perceived to be AFAB are dumb as bricks and it really shows. the more people who say hey this is misogyny and transandrophobia an it's really not making you look cool.

in general i'd say try to tell anyone who is man hating or going on about how easy it is for trans men, if it's not too painful, i would straight up tell people about how alienated you felt as a questioning guy. your experience matters and i'm sorry it was like that, but it has the power to make an impact on others. if it's too painful i understand, but helping people understand that it impacts so many people can help

i would point out that transfems rightfully so do not want transmascs speaking for them, and if that's expected of transmascs, then we gotta do the same and let them speak for themselves instead of talking for and over them. gently urge people to stop talking like they know what it's like to be a trans man just because they were raised and socialized as a cis man. its not the same as being socialized as a cis girl and living as a trans man

remind people that creating a term for transmasculine oppression helps the conversation become more visible, and that's a good thing. right now transmasculine erasure is at its peak and we need to stop saying that transandrophobia is simply just "transphobia," because then it gets lost in transmission and once again, we cannot refer to any kind of statistics to figure out just how many people transandrophobia affects. having a cat hiss reaction to trans men creating terms for their own oppression is genuinely hurting people

remind people that obsessing over who they hate is keeping them rooted in the past. they are not focusing on themselves. when someone is man hating they're focused on everyone but themselves. they can't get over the fact that some men have hurt them. the entirety of manhood is not what hurt them. it's never right to blame people who have not harmed you

i would tell people the existence of transmasculinity & trans manhood doesn't exist to mock transfemininity and trans womanhood. they are real experiences, and no they are not born from spite. there really are trans people out there who want to be men and mascs. try to discourage people from saying that transmascs and trans men are "cis girls looking for attention" at all costs.

anyways thank you so much for this ask i really appreciate it! i'm glad to know there are a lot of transfemmes out there who want to help and recognize this isn't helping. take care of yourself! please feel free to come back any time, i'd love to hear from you again

[mqriuss]

04 | Now playing: Good Girls

from 'bad girls that haven't been caught' series

note: do i like this or not i dont know anymore guys

playlist | series masterlist

rindou likes you.

even ran has started to notice it. this guy is literally going to school everyday just to see you and teach you basketball after school. and the more he attended school, the more he learned about you.

he learns that you're not actually a loner and you have a few friends from different classes that you hang out with during lunch, and the first years think you're more reliable than the entitled student council president.

also, you were so good at english that nakajima sensei gets you to help her check homework answers for fun? and you just casually speak three other languages. crazy. now he just likes you even more.

all this time, rindou also thought you were the type to snitch and remind the teacher they assigned some homework, but you've never done anything of the sort. in fact, it was always fumio doing that kind of stuff. so most of his classmates have more to say about fumio than you.

"fumio's the teacher's pet, y/n's just a smartass," they'd say, in a nutshell at least.

another thing rindou finds out about you is that you've never been a part of any club in school. you just join a random one each week, which is why you're pretty good at everything—swimming, archery, chess, football, volleyball, sewing—the list is endless, but basketball will never be on it.

speaking of basketball, you stopped getting lessons from rindou after ten days. "why do you wanna stop? getting a bit too challenging for ya?" he teased you that day.

"i'm getting bored of it, and i need to focus on studying more," you told him, and your reason made sense. mid-term exams were approaching after all, but you were nowhere to be seen during free periods.

now imagine the terrified faces of the poor girls from class 2-B when rindou came barging in to the home economics club, no tie, first few buttons undone, hands in his pockets, and chewing on an empty candy stick.

"where's y/n?" he asks, unaware that he was practically glaring at them.

"w- we don't know..." one of the girls stammers, gripping onto her friend's hand under the table.

"i know you know. you're her friends, aren't you?"

"the library!" the other girl exclaims, and her friend tries to stop her but she shakes her head vigorously—as if warning her to just stay quiet. "y/n is always at the library any chance she gets when exams are coming up. i suggest you don't bother her while she's studying," she informs him and panics when she sees his eyebrow twitch upwards. "i- i mean, i'm sure she'll understand if it's an urgent matter!"

"please don't kill us!" the other girl chimes in and her friend's eyes widen at her.

rindou makes a puzzled expression, "why would i do that?" he mutters before turning around on his heel. "anyway, thanks for letting me know. see ya." with a lazy wave, he walks out of the classroom and the girls let out a breath they didn't realize they've been holding.

"what does he want with y/n?"

"i don't know, i hope she'll be okay!"

when rindou steps in to the library, he's immediately greeted with a "shhh" from the librarian, making him freeze in his spot. he glances at her before taking another step- "shhh," she shushes him again with a glare and finger over her lips.

"i was just-"

"shhh."

rindou squints, his lips part as he glances around as if there were invisible cameras filming him. he scratches his head, moving on to find you in the maze of this library.

he swears he's passed by every table they had, but you weren't there. even your belongings weren't laying around anywhere.

"excuse me-"

"shhh."

rindou closes his eyes shut, inhaling deeply before exhaling a long breath. "y/n, i'm looking for y/n," he whispers.

"oh, she's in here," the librarian talks for the first time, and rindou deadpans upon hearing her voice. it's loud. almost earsplitting, even.

"um, i don't see her anywhere?" rindou glances around and the librarian shrugs, taking her glasses off to wipe them.

"she came here and hasn't walked out."

"you talk really loud for a-"

"shhh."

rindou sighs and goes venturing back into the library. this time, he weaves through the aisles, and he finally finds you. and honestly, he was expecting you to be sat on the floor with a textbook on your lap.

but what the hell were you doing standing around with hayashi fumio?

you lock eyes with rindou and waste no time dragging him away, completely leaving fumio behind with a dumbfounded expression.

"what the-"

"don't tell anyone," you firmly tell him, but you remained calm.

rindou blinks at you, putting two and two together. "you and fumio..." he trails off, sounding unsure of himself.

"we're dating," you say with a nod, and rindou's mind flashes back to that day fumio and the basketball team walked in on you guys using the indoor court. "you better not tell a soul."

← prev chapter | next chapter →

→ bonus chapter

[refinedpet]

I've come to the realization alot of people's don't realize how much being an internet friend can mean to people.

And I don't just mean old people that barely understand you can have a conversation online. I mean other young people who've been on the internet their entire lives.

I spent basically all of my teen years completely isolated away from people my age, and I wouldn't have made it to the other end without all the people who helped support me, and keep me company. From getting advice as a trans person when no one in my life was capable of it. To talking about Xenoblade or Fire Emblem into the AM.

The girls I dated when I wasn't able to be myself in public still mean the world to me and I cherish my time with them.

I still have a relationship that's fully online, and I love and cherish that one just as much, if not more than my in person relationship.

And I feel like for those who never really had to be at a place where they ONLY had online friends and couldn't interact with others in person for one reason ot another, they just don't understand or take seriously how much those bonds can mean to people.

As said before, one of my girlfriends is still a fully online relationship, I've never met my best friend in person. And even as I'm now able to be around other transfems and forge friendships with them in person, those bonds haven't become any less meaningful.

[season1mac]

season1mac makes season 1 mac gifsets 1/8

s1ep1: the gang gets racist

[a-god-in-ruins-rises]

actually...

looking at a bunch of my old favorite mutuals blogs that have been inactive for years. i miss them, even if i never really talked to any of them. when you're mutuals with a person for so long they become a comforting presence even without talking. you see them every day and read their posts about their thoughts or feelings or about what's going on in their life and so on. and they just become a part of your daily life in such a subtle way.

and then one day they just never post again. without warning. shit sucks. i actually hate it.

[justalittlebluetiefling]

I haven't been involved with coaching for almost 3 months now and somehow I am still getting dragged into the drama.

[goblin-gardens]

Just wrote an email coming out as nonbinary to the hardest conceivable group: the 5 girls I was friends with in middle school because one of them is inviting us to her pre-wedding Girls Trip And Witchy Women Time. Yikes.

[scorpius-rising]

The current trend of 'anti-capitalist' (for want of a better term) positive affirmations leaves me fundamentally cold. It's not that I don't agree with the sentiments that 'rest is important', 'your worth is not defined by your productivity', etc., but at this point they're just the trend of motivational posters of the 90s and early 2000s looping back around again.

They can so easily feel like a substitute for engagement with awkward realities and the sobering nature of material conditions

[wild-at-mind]

If you ever see me becoming one of those transmisandry people, please fucking call me out immediately.

[ranger-kellyn]

ANYWAYS your boy got TWO bonuses at work this pay period i'm!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[scarletcomet]

ngl besties but i am not doing so great right now. anyone else not able to function because of constant thoughts of hurting yourself and crushing depression?

[secondpersonpoetry]

hi! heard the released “Merry Christmas, Please Don’t Call” (which i’ve seen you’ve heard live, if i’m not mistaken!!) this morning and i don’t know if there’s really a particular vibe/dynamic/ship hrpf-wise (personally haven’t yet been able to put my finger on it) that quite relates but the lyrics have been rotating in my head all day and i was wondering if you had any thoughts? hope you have a good one! <3

OH ANON HAVE I EVER SEEN IT LIVE!!! and the second that song came out i zoomed it straight into my fic playlist and unfortunately there are so many guys this could be. right now the one that's resonating is, of course, the golden boy and his haunted ghost themselves: mcstrome.

i am thinking about connor, specifically, after the stanley cup final. that game seven. how angry he was, how loud the silence when they told him he won the conn smythe. how close he's come before and again and again lost. there's nobody else to blame but himself. he's in the empty room and he knows why (1)

at!! your best!!! you were magic!!! oh, golden boy. connor the anointed, of course. at the very beginning of his career we always knew he was something special and who wouldn't have fallen in love with him? weren't all of us a little bit dylan strome in awe of the generational talent? we were all bathed in radiant light just by being in the vicinity (2)

don't even tell 'em that you know me breaks my heart (3). in terms of building a narrative i think i've said before there is a universe where connor/dylan were together before the draft and to protect both of them, dylan breaks up with him. connor says i love you and dylan says i don't. because he doesn't, you know? he loved connor. he loved davo. he can't be in love with connor mcdavid, first overall pick of the edmonton oilers. i'd rather be hurt forever than have to watch us try to make this work and destroy us.

and after connor mcdavid left the otters, dylan strome captained them to a memorial cup win. what a haunted home, eh? to be captain of the team you and your best friend were on, only now he's left you? don't call me to tell me about your rookie season with the oilers--we both know about your broken collarbone. don't call me to tell about becoming the youngest captain in franchise history when i stepped into the shoes of your captaincy here. don't call me. (4)

narratively: dylan's the one who broke connor's heart and his own but by god it wasn't easy. we both know what happened, you went first overall. please don't make this harder on me. please don't call.

this verse can be about the weight of dylan having to live up to connor's standards and always being measured by him. i would just like to bring up the connor stepping stone chart for absolutely no reason as well (5)

we are, at long last, at the potential future of now: dylan strome, happy, smiling, thriving on the washington capitals. connor, on the oilers. i'm not yours, dylan can say. haven't been for a long time. it took some time but i made this. please don't call and ruin this for me, stay out of my life. i don't want you or need you (6)

[p.s. this took a while because when i received this ask i was a) immediately possessed to write this verse by verse breakdown i had never thought of before and then b) immediately plagued by the idea of making you a little graphic (above the read more) and finally got to do it after banging out all the actual lyric thoughts two (?) weeks ago. emerging two and a half hours later from the fugue state of GIMP with 37 layers in this bad boy hope you enjoy!!!]

[dilfosaur]

well i haven't spilled my guts on tumblr since i was in college but it's the platform that's felt The Most Mine thru the years, so

let's talk!

i've had a huge chip on my shoulder that i wanted off before the year ends. very bad professional experience to follow

so firstly to get ahead of the speculating, i'm not naming names or anything. some of you will puzzle out who i'm talking about, but please don't bother anyone especially not on my behalf. i've worked hard to distance myself from them the past few months. shit happens, especially when you're a dumb bitch (that's me!)

but also this person was someone i considered a close friend and it makes me uneasy to possibly direct backlash at them. "then why post about it" bc i did intermittent work for them for over a year. this is just about that. so hear me out

basically it started off fine. i initially did some commission work for good pay, then was invited to become more involved with their team. unfortunately as i became more involved with their operation it became more disorganized over time. projects started then forgotten, constantly shifting schedules, lapsing communication between roles, confusing financials, and often inconsistent if not late payments. during mid 2023 i was doing colorist work, sometimes on a one day turnaround (all while also preparing drawfee's summer merch launch). the payroll wasn't set up correctly so i wasn't paid for that work for over a year (more on that later), tho to be fair that was largely my own fault at first as i just didnt realize the payments didn't go thru lol

i always consider myself decently capable of separating friendship and coworker-ship; i run a company with 4 wonderful friends, going strong for almost 5 years. that didn't really work out in this case. by early this year our friendship was on the rocks; work issues fed into personal issues and vice versa. so as the rest of this shit plays out, we had just had our first "big fight" which i felt very bad about and added to all the upcoming tension

a huge point of friction was the fact that i really wanted to work with them to make a music video for one of their songs. i've always wanted a chance to make a music video, was confident in a concept i came up with, and even did some concept art for the idea. everyone insisted they loved the concept and that we should do it, but we kept pushing it back for various reasons. it ended up becoming a huge sticking point for my frustrations, which i tried to express productively. TLDR, we eventually got around to discussing it seriously around april.

i planned to ask for $4000 with negotiable add-on for the whole project, which was my Friend Discount price. i was offered a contract for $1000 flat rate, as they insisted that was the only budget they had for it.

don't ask me why i signed it lol. i didn't even counter offer

there was some girlmath to it: i wanted an extra 1k for a student scholarship i provide every spring and well, there it was. but if i had to guess, i saw it as something i just couldn't back down from any more. i caused these folks- my friends- a lot of problems bc i dug my heels in so deep to chase this project, so fuck it we ball

i had about 4 months to solo a 3 minute music video. they wanted it done in august so they could release it before summer ended, bc "it was a summer song". to be fair i was asked if i needed them to pay for anything extra like assistants (which i would have to find and manage) but i was so immediately overwhelmed that i didn't wanna slow down to wait on that process lol. there was very minimal communication other than brief progress check-ins every few weeks. i did everything for that project myself: the original concept, character designs, storyboards, layouts, backgrounds. i even did the editing/compositing for the final cut of the MV. the only favor i did myself was limiting the amount of it that was actually animated to simple loops and motions. hardly my best work but it was work still done

i did it all in between my full time job. i ended up having to take nearly a month away from most of my drawfee duties (with the support of the others) to make the august deadline. i only ever asked for a 3 day extension (notice given about a week in advance, around the same time i was given the final song file lol). i finished the music video at 6am on the final deadline and recorded drawfee the next day on 2 hours of sleep

but it was done, coolies. the team was very happy with the final product. honestly, without getting into it, those were a very emotionally taxing 4 months. on the professional side, i regretted agreeing to the project and especially for the dogshit rate they offered. i felt like a hypocrite- as someone who always wanted to advocate for younger artists demanding their worth in a world that's getting increasingly hostile toward creatives, i failed myself

so when i met with the manager to discuss the release plan, i told them to do whatever worked best for them as i only had one request: i wanted my credit removed from the project

tbh... like... lmao this dramatic bitch right!! but really, i decided that bad practices only breed worse business. friends or not, it was unprofessional of me to accept such a low paying job so i just didn't want my name used in association. everything felt so muddled to me and i was just really tired at this point

the manager was very understanding and then offered that i could be paid more. they said that their team "was surprised" i accepted their low rate and they would be happy to up the amount. this confused me as the initial budget seemed pretty set and at no point between april and august was i offered a better rate. i knew these guys weren't made of money. so, i declined. i didn't want to put anyone out of their means over work that was already done and agreed upon. but more importantly, i was over the whole thing and didn't want to prolong the project with a contract renegotiation. i just insisted my name be removed

they decided to use a pseudonym (which i was fine with) so they could create a story about a character who made the MV (this sounds really convoluted but i don't know how better to put it without getting specific, sorry). that way if people asked about the credit, they could speak comfortably about it without signaling that something went wrong behind the scenes. ok, kind of a silly narrative imo but whatevs. and maybe this is where i finally went truly wrong but. yolo i guess

i gave the name "D. Smithee", D as in dilfosaur and Smithee as in Alan Smithee. look it up for fun film trivia ig! was it passive aggressive of me to reference that in this context? yeah, honestly. but i thought it was kinda funny and really not that deep. if it was a problem, i have other real, non-cheeky pseudonyms i regularly use. the manager accepted it and all i had to do was wait for them to post the video and i could leave the whole experience behind me

a week later i received a message from the manager that my pseudonym had been denied by the rest of the team bc one of them got the reference. fair enough lol. however, they decided that rather than ask for a different name, the were going to make one up for me that they liked and would "fit the [story]", without asking me

and that! is when i finally snapped!

i was so tired of giving them concessions at this point and having a credit made up for me without any input from me felt genuinely violating and unethical. i started to Panic bc of how stressed i was, and asked for my overdue payments (aka the $500 still owed on the MV, and the colorist rate from a year prior that was never paid even tho i reported it in january) to be scheduled ASAP as i was leaving the work discord immediately

i finally told them off for exploiting me throughout the months while i kept trying to just be nice and finish my contact cleanly. in return i was told that it was unfair to say that as i agreed to everything- i accepted their cheap rate and denied further payment so that was all settled, and it was ok to change my credit without my consent bc i "said they could do whatever with the release". i called bullshit, ended the convo as kindly as i could, and cried lol. they agreed to ditch the pseudonym and just give no credit. that night was the last i heard from anyone on that team

and the real kicker?

august came and went. then september, october... and they never released the music video

and i don't know why, because i was never contacted about it. i've been removed from the picture entirely i guess. 4 months and boatloads of stress. just. up in smoke. i don't know what i expected honestly

it's hard to not take everything that happened personally and as done in bad faith. i really do, honestly. i've had plenty of shitty deals in my almost 10 year art career, but it hits different from people you saw as friends. but to the point of "why not keep it private", i have never felt so disrespected as a professional as i did this past year. i can toy with money and credits and other formalities all i want, but my work- my ideas, my labor, my effort- is still so important to me. i felt like the biggest idiot for doing so much work, pouring so much of myself into a piece for someone's use, for what has amounted to nothing

but more importantly i hated myself for undervaluing my work, even if initially i thought this person was a trusted friend. money is not really an issue for me- drawfee is my main job and i am fine and comfortable. it's so important to pay artists appropriately but i often undersell my own work bc i value the collaboration and passion between creatives more than the reward. i think a lot of artists tend to feel the same, and it often makes us easy to take advantage of. it's so difficult to find the balance between passion and making a fair living, and i think there's some shame within ourselves when artists choose to prioritize that passion

i wanted to finally get all this off my chest bc i was ashamed of every choice i made. things like this happen all the time i'm sure and hiding these mistakes only make it easier for it to happen to other people

tldr always value your work and protect your passion from people who just see it as a product. and don't give cheeky pseudonyms i guess lol

(and again pls don't bother anyone involved about this. a lot of chaos has left my life as i moved past all this, and this is me closing a door without opening new ones hopefully lol)

this shit was truly

so ass.

but i'm moving past it now

but on a nicer note. outside of all of this nonsense, i made lots of good memories this year. i'm truly so grateful to the many wonderful people in my life who keep me going even when i fuck up big time!

and thank you to all of you strangers who, despite everything, give me the time of day. especially if you read this whole thing. you're a real one :')

happy new year!

[lilacerull0]

ahhhh just laid my soul bare