#when someone on internet sees your art and they think

[eridanus-posessed-microwave]

It has been a long couple of days in one of my fandoms. I’m not naming the fandom. I am not naming the authors involved. I am not naming the fics.

Because it doesn’t matter.

In one of my fandoms I came across a fic on AO3. A quite long fic, marked complete.

I thought it would be nice to settle in and read post Christmas festivities.

I think I ruined the Christmas holidays for multiple people by being the bearer of bad news.

You see, straight up, the ‘author’ of the fic mentions that they used parts of other people’s fics and had the fics in the author notes section.

I assumed they meant they had used OC’s and were inspired by them. Strange they hadn’t linked them properly.

I had not even gotten part way through the first chapter and felt sick.

You see those authors? Are all on a discord server with me. I knew well enough they would not have given permission to anyone to copy and paste entire chunks and chapters of their fics.

Four different authors with four different fics.

So I asked politely on the fic if the ‘author’ had asked permission. I also DM’d the authors with a link and a ‘Have you seen this’.

The authors had not.

The ‘author’ proclaimed they ‘tried for a year’ and couldn’t figure out how to contact them.

Me: *slow blink*

Also me: I know at least two of the authors had links to the discord a year ago. I also know that all four authors answer comments regularly.

I have gone back and forth with them- because I was trying to be gentle. It’s the internet- they could be anywhere from 8 to 100 (I do know their age now, since assuming they were younger was insulting.)

I was trying to gently educate that this isn’t ok to do and to offer ways that they could have contacted the authors (and in future can contact authors- mainly leaving a comment in their fics comment section).

One of the authors that I contacted, when she commented, was basically told that ‘I’ll change that one bit’ ignoring all the rest that was copied and used.

The ‘author’ has taken down a couple of chapters and told us we are harassing, belittling and bashing their fic and it’s our fault it’s having parts taken down.

Keep in mind- they said they wrote 2/3 of the fic. Going through it I was recognising my friends fics as huge parts of it up to the last six chapters (of a 25 chapter, 300+k fic)

Which lead me to think.

Maybe people don’t realise that there are unspoken of rules to writing fanfic and inspiring your fics off of someone else’s.

So maybe we need rules actually written out.

Fanfic writing is a lawless place, but I’m pretty sure everyone is going to agree with these.

Rules for writing fanfiction

1: Being inspired by fics is great. Always try to link the fics to yours- on AO3 there is a data field for this.

2: If you want to use a scene etc and build off of it/go in a different direction, ask the author first. Especially if you plan on using part of their writing. We can’t stop you from writing it but it’s polite. Accept that you may be told no.

3: Do not take entire chapters and copy it word for word. It’s plagiarism. If you are doing it to multiple fics in one story, you will end up with contradictory scenes.

Changing one or two words out of an entire scene or chapter, or changing a single sentence does not make it yours. It is still plagiarism.

4: If you know a character is an OC, ask permission. Accept that you may be told no.

Remember: No answer is not consent.

5: AO3 has a lovely comment function where you can ask things of authors. If the author you want to ask things of has comments turned off, accept that they do not wish to be contacted and accept that no contact does not mean do what you want. No contact means no permission.

6: Consent is sexy. If you want to do anything with someone else’s work, you ask. This includes using any part of their written words, any of their OC’s. This includes podfics and translations and to a certain point, art.

A: Podfic. It’s always good to ask- again acknowledging you may get a no- or be told it is fine so long as it is not done by ai- or uploaded via any place that came make money off of it.

B: Translations. This one is a tricky one. Some authors will be fine and some will not. The issue stems from translations not being word for word and some concepts being lost in translation. I acknowledge it is great to have fics in multiple languages however I also acknowledge that it is a lot of hard work between the translator and the author to ensure there is nothing lost. Not all authors have the bandwidth to do this, especially on fics that can be a few hundred thousand words.

C: Art. Most fic writers are fine with fan art. It’s only here because someone is going to bring it up. If an author has ‘fan art welcome’ go for it and post using the inspired by thing on ao3. If they don’t- ask. It’s likely a yes but everyone has their comfort levels and it’s still polite.

There are probably more but honestly? It’s fanfiction. It’s a lawless place held together with strings and ideas. It’s made on playing in other peoples sandboxes.

Just please, remember that people’s OC’s aren’t public property unless stated otherwise- and don’t blatantly copy other people’s work.

Someone will realise it feels familiar and we are fandoms. We don’t tend to forgive and forget when it comes to the big things.

And yes, it is an odd feeling to write ‘don’t use other authors OC’s without permission’ while also saying it is fine to write established characters that are from various forms of media. The difference is honestly a respect thing. Think of fandoms as sand boxes with a few toys scattered in. Anyone can play with those toys. If someone brings their own toys to play, you don’t just take them without asking.

I’m going to likely never post another tumblr post. I’m asking please don’t go looking for the author or the work. I don’t want them to continue to pull the harassment/bullying/bashing card. Which honestly led me to asking on two discord servers if my responses were bashing anything (no they weren’t. So at least I don’t feel like a bully on top of being the bearer of bad news).

Now it’s time for Eli to take over for a bit. Everyone needs a half feral, under socialised hellhound teen in their head (you don’t want him. He likes stabbing people and eating hearts).

Just remember.

No means no.

Consent is sexy.

The absence of a response is not a yes.

[squidsinatrentchcoat443]

Rant about pro shipping (warning this has a lot of my opinion [woah see how I said MINE] and a lot of things that endanger kids)

Yes it it good to cope with trauma useing art, I’m not saying it’s not. BUT if you’re gonna do it in a way like this keep it off the internet. You are making a safe space for people who actually support these crimes. You are saying that you LIKE r@p3sts P3d0s and M@PS. You are opening a new space for people who should be no where on the internet. Leave the characters alone, leave the real kids alone. “But my therapist said it’s ok!” Your licensed, professional, trained therapist told you it’s ok the sexualize little kids on the internet? You can do this, whatever I don’t care, what makes me mad is you post it. You give it to people who don’t want to see this, people who are triggered by this, people who are young and are learning what this is. These kids who see this will begin to believe it’s ok. Believe it’s fine if this happens to them. “It’s a coping mechanism!” Yes, I use things like this too. Giving trauma you have to your characters is a good way of dealing with trauma. But you are endorsing it. You are saying this was a good thing. You are saying you enjoyed it. You are sharing it with others. You are making others believe this is good. “Fiction doesn’t affect reality!” Yes it does. People with DID have fictives that majorly affect their life. People become obsessed with a character or plot or idea. People have done terrible things to others and themselves because of fiction. “It doesn’t affect you!” It doesn’t affect me, but it affects many others. People get triggered by these things, people experience these things and hate it. People get major ptsd from it. People are seeing this for the first time and thinking it’s ok. People are doing this to others. “I don’t like it in real life!” You post it online. That’s real! People who see it are real. You are saying ‘I like that idea of a child getting majorly hurt but I don’t what it to happen!’ Do you see the plot holes here? “But it happened to me” and you’re making a space for it to happen more. When Someone has trauma they don’t like it. The character most of the time is enjoying what is happening. That’s not giving trauma to a character. That’s sexualizing minors. “But (character) doesn’t like what (other character) is doing to them!” You’re still exposing ppl to it. You’re still sexualizing the character(s), you’re still triggering ppl with it.

I’m not saying it’s not a way to cope with trauma. But relying on it for your only source of joy, or comfort is really bad. Everyone copes in a different way, but keep your coping mechanism private! Keep your weird thoughts about this to your self! Do you have no shame? Are you not ashamed that you are publicly confessing that you like the idea of R@p3, @g3gaps,and P3d0phl1a? I don’t get it.

In conclusion dont harass these people, don’t send them death threats, but I want people to understand this is not normal, nor ok. You can cope but cope off the internet.

[s-dei]

honestly, I'd die for someone to draw my blorbos for me.

warcraft blorbos, resident blorbos, any other blorbos i ever put all of my exsistance into

[godbirdart]

if there's one [1] thing i will be forever grateful for in the internet era it's the vast variety and availability of pose / anatomy references supplied by photographers and models

i can go online and find PERFECT references for how fat folds crease the skin or how muscles wrap around the body and as someone who habitually draws most of his OCs ~modestly lean~ and wants to hone his skill in other body types, it is literally a godsend to have those refs so readily available

seriously, thank you all models and photographers for providing me the resources i need to expand my art skills i owe u my life

[clover-the-awesomest]

Major respect and gratitude to all these wonderful artists and logical people!! I'm an amateur artist myself who has never seen the appeal in AI art at all, or just AI in general, but I never really thought too much on how the situation affects people with disabilities. This thread though shows me and other regular people how free and creative art is. And how "Art" as a concept really doesn't have any limitations! You don't need a robot to do something that only a human can truly understand, and you shouldn't have to!

Thanks for sharing all your POV's on this situation and I'm glad we still have some sensible people in such a shitty world. <3

Plus, AI just sucks overall.

"ai is making it so everyone can make art" Everyone can make art dipshit it came free with your fucking humanity

[saszor]

Overview of some topics when it comes to drawing characters who are burn survivors.

DISCLAIMER. Please keep in mind that this is an introductory overview for drawing some burn scars and has a lot of generalizations in it, so not every “X is Z” statement will be true for Actual People. I'm calling this introductory because I hope to get people to actually do their own research before drawing disabled & visibly different characters rather than just making stuff up. Think of it as a starting point and take it with a grain of salt (especially if you have a very different art style from mine).

Talking about research and learning... don't make your burn survivor characters evil. Burn survivors are normal people and don't deserve to be constantly portrayed in such a way.

Consider supporting me on ko-fi if you find this to be helpful.

edit: apparently tum "queerest place on the internet" blr hates disabled people so much that this post got automatically filtered. cool!

second way more important edit: How are people seeing this post where I specifically talk about burn survivors being normal, real people, and still tag this as "TW body horror"? Not a single one of these drawings or pictures is a fresh injury. All of them are healed. How the hell would you feel if someone tagged a photo of you as "trigger warning: gore"?

Disabled people are not your fucking body horror. Grow up.

[hipstersoulgushers]

every time I see a "pr*ship and ant*ship are both equally annoying" post its made by a pr*shipper. Literally every time.

[drchucktingle]

this was a comment on one of my post from a recent live event. it was photos of joyful queer buckaroos celebrating together and proving love is real through creation, community, and a trot of love. most important I AM LITERALLY IN PHOTO AS A REAL FLESH AND BLOOD HUMAN

it got me thinking about how DEEP AND VICIOUS the irony poisoning of these early internet communities goes. the way buds like this cannot fathom someone just being a sincere person unrelated to their OWN old days of cynical posting. it is fascinating, and i will admit, sad too

despite a DECADE of work, countless live events, 350 tinglers written well before large language models were a thing, there are still people who cannot imagine someone like me could exist. it is a strange place to be. not just part of me, but my entire EXISTENCE is often gatekept

it is easy to say ‘well chuck your art IS strange’ but honestly i think it is more than that. magical realism is common. there are stories about dinosaurs and bigfeet and unicorns. this scoundrel reaction is about two unspoken things: my art is neurodivergent, and my art is queer

heres the thing: I WILL BE FINE. what concerns me is not an issue of MYSELF, it is a concern for the other young outsider buckaroos who see comments like this one and think ‘is that what they will say if i express MY unique way? will i be dehumanized like this at every turn?'

i will be honest, i cannot say that WONT happen, but i CAN say this: for as deep as this irony poisoning goes, it is slowly dying. the way i was treated at the start of my career is LIGHTYEARS DIFFERENT from the way i am treated now. there is a massive shift towards sincerity

BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY. to young artists trotting up, the things that i am harassed over and doubted for and made fun of for are NOT tangental to what has made me successful, THEY ARE LITERALLY THE SAME THINGS THAT HAVE MADE ME SUCCESSFUL. YES I AM STRANGE, WHAT OF IT?

the things that you tuck away for fear of a review that says ‘there is a PROBLEM with this art because it has always been done another way’ THOSE ARE YOUR SUPERPOWERS. the gatekeepers want you to tuck those parts of yourself away because THEY TUCKED AWAY THOSE PART OF THEMSELVES

never forget that your unique way is PURE UNFILTERED 100 PERCENT ROCKET FUEL. it will stick out (maybe, if you are lucky, scoundrels will even say that someone like you could never actually be real), but sticking out isnt so bad when you are waving the flag of love.

in fact, when youre waving the flag of love, sticking out is pretty dang cool. what are flags for, after all? LOVE IS REAL BUCKAROOS. thank you for reading, and if you enjoyed this long post then please consider preordering BURY YOUR GAYS.

LETS TROT

[clenastia]

self confidence is a skill that can be learned and you have to let yourself and your art exist distinct from how others perceive it. you will never exist or create in a way that nobody criticizes and that is NOT a bad thing. you obviously care a lot about your work or you wouldn't fret over it this much, but fixating so heavily on the potential opinions of people you made up to criticize you isn't healthy and isn't doing you any good. you're allowed to set that weight down and I truly believe you can do it.

I do try! when i catch myself spiralling i generally try to forcfully redirect my thoughts, even if it means completely ignoring whatever triggered it, but unfortunately sometimes i feel like im stuck in a loop because thinking of getting published triggers spirals of anxiety so i cant think too much about it which means i never get around to DOING it which makes me upset because i've always WANTED to get published, but when i try to seriously consider it i get all tangled up in the anxieties and ugh.

in all honesty i fell into the trap of thinking therapy would be a quicker fix than it is, where the therapist could give me a list of steps to do and my anxiety/issues would go away once i did them. so i put a bunch of unrealistic expectations on therapy but unfortunately there IS no magical list of steps to making your brain work right. you just. gotta wake up every day and push your way through the spirals and face the things you're afraid of. meds help, for sure, i don't get panic attacks anymore and the anxiety doesn't stress me out so much i end up crying or shutting down most of the time. but like. everything else, the solution is just: ignore it. keep trying. and there's no. fucking. steps to just. "do these three things and your brain will work like a neurotypical one!" and it fucking sucks and i hate it and i still gotta keep trying if i wanna get anywhere.

I haven't been on meds for a full year yet, and therapy less than that, so im sure with time I'll get to a place where i CAN push through those specific fears and get to where i want to be, and that in a lot of ways i'm still just rushing things and wishing i could be better NOW instead of having to put in months and years of work.

a lifetime of self-worth issues don't get resolved with pills and six months of therapy, but sometimes its just so GODDAMN unfair and i just want a magic cheat sheet to getting better :(

or maybe someone who can do like. literally everything for me so i don't have to face it myself lol.

can there be a business for that? like. be your own ghost writer. someone else gets all the credit and hate mail and deals with all the publishers. but you get to write your silly little stories and still make profit.

that'd be nice xD

totally ripe for abuse and probably actually a terrible idea but like. in an idealistic way. it'd be nice. y'know?

[is-this-yuri]

Please help me survive and escape homelessness.

GFM

KF

CA

I want to be safe by the winter of 2025.

I'm having a difficult time fundraising for my van. Repeated car troubles and various other unexpected issues have eaten into my savings multiple times, and while in a slump I wasn't making as many posts about my situation and I got significantly less donations over the last ~6 weeks on both my gofundme and my kofi/cashapp. While I've 'regained' a lot of what I lost, I've been spending about as much as is coming in. Aside from one instance, my emergency expenses were eaten by my fundraiser savings, which was then gained back about as quickly as I was spending it on my daily expenses. I still haven't reached the goal for the recent $1000 I had to spend on my car.

So far I've lost $2,200 of the $3,100 that's shown on the GFM. I'll be updating the fundraiser to reflect the loss.

I'm autistic and struggle just to meet my basic needs, and despite that I've been denied disability income multiple times. Failing to hold a job (and developing PTSD symptoms from my time being employed), and let down and abandoned by anyone who could support me, I'm left with few resources and few options. I try to make posts when I'm in a good mood, or keep people updated when I'm in a bad mood. I make videos on YouTube, hoping eventually I can show people what their money has gotten for me.

On a good month, I only spend about $600, leaving me some space to save the donations I was previously getting. With winter and the holidays coming, I'm not sure I'll be getting as much money as the warmer months, and I'll be spending more on keeping myself warm and fed over the winter. It will be more like $800/mo now. The only real solution is getting more money than I'm spending, as I'm already spending as little as I safely can.

I'll only take financial advice from someone who has lowered their expenses below mine, with the same disabilities and circumstances as me. What I need is more money, and I don't always have the energy to pay back with art and things like that. I don't even always have the energy to post my pleas for help. I don't have a sponsor to help me make these posts.

I'm in a low energy mode because what can I do with no money? In a state where I have to spend as little as possible, see such slow results, see most of it taken by things outside my control, and somehow keep up hope that this will work?

When I feel safe and have adequate shelter in a van, I'll be able to REST. And then start working harder and making more money one way or another. Whether you think I should suck it up and get a job or you want to see me become a content creator, I need money for any kind of opportunity and I'm just not getting enough.

So, thank you to everyone who's suppported me so far. Thank you to the repeat supports. I'm sorry I had to spend your money on other things. Thank you to the person who covered most of a huge expense I was stressing about a couple months ago. Thank you to the person who sent me $200 to get a hotel and told me to take care of my mental health before saving anything. Thank you to the blogs that have featured my fundraiser in your posts. Thank you to everyone who keeps boosting and cheering me on even though you can't support financially.

I don't know what else I can do to get more people like that to see me. There are so many options on the internet, but it's still a daunting task and as much as I can't really afford to rest, I have to sometimes. Often, in fact.

Please keep boosting this post until my goal is really met. Until I can spend more than $600 a month and actually earn your money rather than beg for 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

[aeide-thea]

Photography by Simon Knott

Medieval stained glass fragment incorporated in a later window at the church of All Saints, East Barsham (Norfolk)  

image from here

[nottsangel]

— artrick and camgirl!reader ੈ♡˳

moodboard

it began as just a quick way to make some extra money during college and nothing more than that. you were a bit apprehensive at first, aware of the risks and consequences of someone finding you, but eventually, you started to find joy in it, especially because you received a lot of attention— even more than the other girls on the same website. people, who where mostly older men, started to like you, and money began to pour in like never before. but no matter what, you had to keep it a secret from everyone.

yet, patrick who scours the whole internet for porn that matches his specific taste, managed to unexpectedly find you while you were live. he almost couldn’t believe his eyes— his best friend, with her legs spread wide as she touched herself and loud moans escaped her mouth. and god, the way you moaned sounded so angelic, with your pretty, soft lips parted in ecstasy. he simply had no other choice— he had to tell art.

“i swear to god patrick, i don’t wanna see those golden shower porn videos again.” “just, trust me, you’re gonna wanna see this.” patrick insisted as he opened his laptop. he glanced at the time. 10 pm. that was usually when you came online on thursdays, because yes, patrick had already watched you so many days in a row, he memorised your streaming schedule. “who are these girls?” art questioned with a raised brow, puzzled as to why patrick would show him random camgirls, until he noticed he noticed you— fully naked while you held a vibrator against your swollen clit, causing his eyes to widen as he leaned closer to the laptop screen. “holy… fuck.” “yup. i know.”

and that’s how it all began. now, every day right before you would come online, patrick and art would sit impatiently next to each other on the bed, eagerly waiting for you to go live. “you think she’ll use that pink dildo again?” art asked patrick with clammy hands resting on his knees. “god, i hope so. that one’s my favourite.” and when you finally appeared on screen, a smirk spread simultaneously across both boys’ faces as they stared mesmerised at the screen, quickly adjusting their positions as their pants grew uncomfortably tight.

it was somewhat odd— it almost felt like video calling with you, as if you were touching yourself just for them, until they were hit with the harsh reality of the comments and countless men thirsting over you. the wave of comments flooding in during your streams, especially when you would interact with them, evoked a complex mix of emotions in patrick and art. they were consumed by jealousy— they wanted you for themselves, and they hated the fact that others could see what they saw. “jesus, these men are fucking desperate.” art exclaimed while reading the quick-paced comments with an unamused face. patrick shook his head in disapproval as he let out a chuckle. “i bet they’re all jerking off while watching her, fucking creeps.”

and ultimately… they found themselves becoming what they once criticised the most, as they’re now shoulder to shoulder in art’s stanford dorm room, hands tightly wrapped around their throbbing erections as they pumped it quickly. “this, uhm… this isn’t weird, right?” art questioned, his breaths coming in quick pants as your moans echoed through the shitty speakers of his cheap laptop. “no, no… i mean, we’re looking at her, right? nothing weird about that.” patrick reassured art as his eyes stayed fixed on your movements, and art nodded in agreement.

and even now, as they masturbated not only on their own to you but together, while watching you strip and bring yourself to your orgasms over and over again, they still hung out with you as usual. you noticed a change in their behaviour though— you couldn’t quite pinpoint what it was, but they seemed more, nervous around you. you brushed it off quickly though, thinking it was just you. but little did you know they were indeed nervous to be around you now, as their eyes scanned every inch of your body covered in clothing, knowing that they had seen all of it— all of you, naked.

“do you… do you think we should tell her? that we know?” patrick asked art as they were once again, sitting in art’s dorm room, their hands lazily pumping their cocks. soft fucks and oh my gods slipped from your lips and resonated through the room along with the buzzing sound of your rose toy, which was the usual on fridays. “i mean, yeah, we should, eventually. maybe… uhm, next week… or something.” “yeah, yeah. next week.”

ੈ♡˳

🏷️ tags: @maizweig @swamp-box @oceandriveab @starkeysprincess @unhingedbanks @imawhoreforu @mcugirl @skylerwhitwyo @maybankswifey @hearts-4-kai @takaosin @imbabycowboy @badesire @parkerloves @diorrfairy @jizzlle

[mortalityplays]

You need more free art.

I quit my job yesterday. Well, actually I quit my job eight weeks ago, but they finally released me yesterday for good behaviour. Don't get me wrong, I love what I do - but I do it for the wrong reasons. Working for major charities, you learn very fast that 'I want to make the world a better place' is a phrase you use to ask people for money, not to give them things. I was an ass-backwards fit for that world.

You need more free art. I need more free art. Everyone has felt the shift in our media landscape over the last ten years, away from access and towards nickel-and-diming the human experience. That lack of access is making life and culture worse for all of us, across the board. Paywalled news sites leave us less informed, attacks on the Internet Archive leave us less capable of research. Algorithmic social feeds and streaming walled gardens trap us inside smaller and smaller demographic bubbles, where we are increasingly only likely to encounter ideas that have been curated for us by marketing departments. Hasty efforts to resist AI commodification have only led to more artists locking their work away and calling for even more onerous systems of copyright law. This is not good for us.

We all need more free art.

So what am I going to do about it?

This is a question I have been asking myself for years. It's easy to sit here feeilng frustrated and thinking 'boy I hope SOMEONE does SOMETHING'. It's harder to take action in a world where I still have rent to pay. But hard doesn't mean impossible. Sometimes hard just means time-consuming, frustrating and slow. And sometimes it's worth doing something time-consuming, frustrating and slow because...I want to make the world a better place.

I'm going to do this:

1. From April 1st, I am relaunching as a freelance writer and editor.

This is the one that will (hopefully) help to pay the bills. I am a very good and experienced editor. I've worked on hollywood movies, I'm a member of the Chartered Institute of Editors and Proofreaders, I have clients who have been coming to me exclusively for more than 10 years.

Alongside bigger contract jobs, I am going to refocus on offering my services to small-press creators at a reduced rate. That means you, graphic novelists. That means you, itch and amazon writers. I want to help you develop your work, the same way I help large organisations. You can learn more about what an editor even does and what kind of pricing you can expect here.

2. I'm also going to start giving shit away. Like, constantly.

Next week I'm going to launch a new free shop. If you're unfamiliar, a free shop, giveaway shop, swap shop, etc. is an anarchist tradition of setting up a storefront where anyone can take what they like for no cost. Offline, this often means second-hand clothes, tools, furniture, food etc. Online, I am going to be giving away digital art. Copyright-free, no strings attached. It will (eventually) feature everything from print-res posters to zines, poems, tattoo flash, t-shirt designs and anything else we come up with.

Yes, I said 'we' - while this is a curated collection, it will feature work from a variety of credited and anonymous artists and activists, all of whom have agreed to give their work away to the public domain. Some of it will be practical, some of it will be political, but a lot of it will be decorative or personal. This is, in part, a response to recent difficulty I had finding somewhere that would print a one-off joke poster for a friend that featured the word 'faggot'. Enough. No middlemen - no explaining ourselves. Just print our shit and enjoy it.

I'm very, very excited about this project. I'll have more to say about it closer to the launch, but you can expect it to go live on March 27th.

2.2 I forgot to mention the ACTUAL LAUNCH GIVEAWAY

To celebrate my launch, I am going to be giving away a ton of physical prints. When I went looking for my old stock to see if it was worth setting a new (paid) storefront up, I realised I had way more old work in storage than I thought. This will be announced in its own right on Monday, but this is why I've been hinting you should go follow my Patreon.

On April 1st, I will pick 8 random patrons (from across all tiers including non-paying followers!) and mail them a bundle of assorted prints and postcards. The prize pool includes A3 and A4 posters, packs of A6 postcards, and printed minicomics that I've previously sold for up to £12 each.

You don't have to be a paying subscriber to enter - this is strictly no-purchase necessary. It is purely and entirely a celebration of the concept of GIVING ART AWAY FOR FREE.

3. PORN, YOU PERVERTS

Because I still have to pay to stay alive, I am going to be subsidising all this free art with the introduction of Fuck You Fridays. Starting from March 29th, I will drop a new 18+ short story on the last Friday of every month, over on itch.io (yes I know my page is desolate right now, don't worry I'll get there).

The first edition, Go Fuck Yourself, is about, well - telling your boss where to stick it. Julia has had it with her millionaire man-child manager, and is just about ready to let him know what she really thinks. It's a short and steamy 5k words, with a gorgeous cover illustration by @taylor-titmouse, and you can pick it up for $3 starting from March 29th.

4. ANOTHER BIG SURPRISE

I'm keeping this one under wraps for now, but April 1st will also play host to one more (FREE) launch. If you've been following me for a long time, you might remember the other significance of this date (no not April Fool's day, though that is certainly thematically relevant to this entire effort). That's all I'll say right now. Watch this space.

tl;dr: I'm sick of paywalls and career ladders. I'm literally putting my money where my mouth is. More free art for everyone and I'm not kidding around!!!

[luviestarz]

lee haechan fic recs!

❤︎ I LIKE YOU (I DO) (L.DH) - @domjaehyun (stoner!haechan just wants you to know how much he likes you.)

❤︎ paperclip - @smileysuh (yandere, ex bf! hyuck)

❤︎ My Boy. - @prodbymaui (A series of failed relationships and you were this near of giving up on love. But then here comes little Donghyuck and his persistence. Maybe-- he was the one fated to you, after all.)

❤︎ kiss it better - @yeow6n (haechan gets hurt but you know that with him it’s not going to be as simple as putting a band-aid on it)

❤︎ sugar, butter, & the royal crown - L.DH - @haechwrites (prince donghyuck only has one princess on his mind, but she's not actually a princess. she's just the royal baker's granddaughter.)

❤︎ bus stop - @ooshu (haechan rides the bus. you hop on the same ride. minutes later, you two were a couple. he never questioned why.)

❤︎ strawberries & cigarettes - @hyudior (the art school's play is in two days and you're running out of time to put everything together since your known enemy lee donghyuck decided that the rehearsal day was the perfect day to release a launch party for his new album.)

❤︎ >> take my breath - @hyuckwrlds

❤︎ moles ♡‧₊˚ lee haechan - @sleeping-sirens (you read something on the internet that made you feel jealous of a person you didn’t even know but haechan knows just how to reassure you.)

❤︎ haechan — gold-skinned, eager baby - @hyuckmov (he used to be able to hide it. he used to be fine with glancing at you, habitually flicking his eyes to your chest when you would walk into the room or snuggle up to him. but now he’s totally fucked, because he thinks he’s developed some sort of addiction.)

❤︎ eyes tell - @tonicandjins (donghyuck has been trying to confess his feelings to you. third time's the charm, he thinks.)

❤︎ going below zero | l.dh - @cherryeoniis (Considering how much Haechan makes it his personal mission to antagonize you at work, it seems like a rather cruel twist of fate that the both of you have been side by side since middle school, the only consolation being that his office is a different floor from yours. But if there’s a saying about how distance makes the heart grow fonder, your attitude with him might just be the opposite, and it’ll take a family ski holiday to find out.)

❤︎ take my breath. - @sixzeroes (lee donghyuck did not believe in ‘love at first sight.’ key word: did. he does now, but only because you happened to fall into his arms on the icy road in the narrow streets. you’re going to render him breathless from the countless times your smile takes his breath away.)

❤︎ ice cream thief [ l.dh ] - @tddyhyck (someone has been eating haechan's favorite ice cream so he decides to put a hidden camera in the kitchen and living room thinking it's a shared space it shouldn't invade anyone's privacy... right?)

❤︎ tease | lee haechan - @hyuckiefluff (Playing spin the bottle definitely wasn't what you had envisioned for your first college party. And the last person you expected to see was Lee Haechan. But life has a funny way of throwing surprises at you, and this time it came in the form of the bottle landing on some drunk dude who dared you to kiss Haechan.)

❤︎ 𝟏𝟎 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒 𝐈 𝐇𝐀𝐓𝐄 𝐀𝐁𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐘𝐎𝐔 ¹⁸⁺ - @goldyeokki (you and lee donghyuck both get along like oil and water. if it were up to you, you would be going about your days without even breathing in his direction. unfortunately you're in the same friend group and you have to tolerate each other. as handsome or attractive as people claim him to be, you hate his guts. there's so many reasons why you hate him, so why do you get butterflies in your stomach when he's near?)

❤︎ high (with my lover) [m] – l.dh - @yeonghosins (y/n smokes up with donghyuck for the first time)

❤︎ what the puck! - @choerrypuffs (you hit the university’s star hockey player with your car. shenanigans (and maybe even a little romance) ensue.)

❤︎ double take | l.dh - @cherryeoniis (friends to lovers, highschool au, slowburn, fluff, angst)

❤︎ Your Red Lipstick || L.DH - @ihaechans (Kisses, kisses, kisses. That’s all your boyfriend wants. When you refuse to give him the one thing he craves, he won’t leave you alone, begging and begging until you give in.)

[yellowocaballero]

There's a genre of post that I see pretty frequently, which can overall be summed up as, "Modern fandom has a culture problem where fanfic authors are treated as content producers instead of community members and their fanfic is treated as a commodity to be consumed instead of a high-effort labor of love that deserves attention and compliments given directly to the author". I agree with 3/4ths of that. I find the part I disagree with very interesting, the same way I find a lot of writeblr interesting, because it's a perspective that I had to work very hard to actually understand.

Because the posts have such a warped view of what writing is and why we post our writing! They say that fanfic fights against the commodified internet we live in, but all they're doing is changing the currency of payment in this attention economy. Another way you can summarize about 70% of these posts is, "My payment for writing and posting my fanfiction is compliments, and if you do not give me those compliments you are not paying. If you give those compliments behind my back, or talk about them privately without giving them to me as well, then you are stealing from me." I don't want to put it like that, but a lot of these posts use words like 'deprive', as if the reader who enjoys the fic without commenting is withholding something from them that they deserve. They use the word engagement, and they do talk about how part of that engagement is just the joy of talking about AUs and ships with other people, but when people say that comments are their motivation to keep writing, what they mean is that validation is their motivation to keep writing. Which is compliments.

I understand that, because I understand that fanfic writers are not immune to the attention economy. But I don't understand how almost every one of these posts talk about how this lack of attention makes them stop writing - that this act of theft is killing their desire to write. I could understand this if they meant 'desire to POST fic' (I don't post fic I think zero people would read.), but they talk about how lack of payment stops them from writing at all.

IMHO, that is what creates a commodity from fic. People want to treat fic as art, but an artist makes art for themself. Art is made because we want to hold parts of skills and ourselves in our hands. If you won't make art if you get no payment, then you have devalued the art completely.

We think of AO3 as this unique site that's born entirely from passion and is filled with fics written for love of the game. But guilt-tripping posts that shame people for not commenting on a fic they enjoy, and that describe how there's no point in writing fic if it's not getting attention, are directly contributing towards the culture of treating fic like a commodity.

I also really want a fandom culture where the relationship between artist and reader is reciprocal, where it feels like a community, and where I get to talk about my fanfic with people. My favorite part of posting fanfic is rambling about it on my blog, because I can talk about my art all day and I love it when people stop and listen. But I love that because I love my own art. If you love your own art, then it'll always have value.

Also Google your username, just trust me, that's how you find The Secret Discussions. Someone made a TikTok fansong of me once. WHAT?