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goldensunset · 4 months

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i don't really know how to word this but like i feel like i'm gonna forever have to deal with the pain and heartache of one of my very first pokémon games- the first 'normal' pokémon game i've ever played, that i will have lasting nostalgia and love for as a result of it being formative to my introduction into the series- being the one that will forever be looked down upon for bad graphics and technical issues as a result of the game having been rushed

like i honest to goodness want to scream and yell and cry into the void about how this means everything to me and will always be one of my fave games just in general. but how am i gonna do that without someone being like 'the broken overpriced mess? the one that's missing all this stuff from the older games that was great? the thing with all the cringe? that one?' or whatever. and the thing is they aren't wrong for their criticisms either like i know the fact that they rushed this wonderful game hardcore is a massive stain on its reputation and it hurts me too but like i cannot turn off the brain full of love in me and be a mean critic. or even an impartial one. i mean i criticize everything i love don't get me wrong i am constantly running my mouth about what i like and don't like. but at the end of the day i approach all media with an unusually optimistic mindset. if you see me talk a ton about something no matter what i'm saying you can bet it means i love it.

just. aaagh. it's always tough being a new fan of an old series. i'm like too embarrassed to express my opinions bc i feel like they're invalid y'know? i feel so exhausted every time i see something to the effect of like 'oh those poor kids these days having to deal with such bad quality everything what a bad time to be a fan of pokémon wow y'all make me feel so old' well see the thing is i actually am thriving and i love it here. and i'm also an adult myself so i have more critical thinking skills than people who played red when they were like five years old did. and even with the power of critical thinking i manage to be in love with this. join me in marvelling at the beauty of life

#sorry for the massive rant i am full of both love and rage but i feel alone in this world about this particular subject #my other fav complaint is like 'they make it too easy to xyz these days'#to me that reads like 'i suffered so why shouldn't they'#yes we should encourage people to spend 100 hours grinding to do basic story requirements.#to weed out the true gamers from the weaklings. or maybe we could use the spare time in our lives to touch grass #the only easy-fication change in sv i don't like is the ability to access boxes right from the menu #that kinda cheapens the need to strategically organize a team before heading somewhere #i can.. sorta understand being miffed about the remember moves mechanic?#frankly platinum was so stressful with not being able to freely switch without great hassle/cost #it would have been a fair enough compromise to make you pay a bit of lp or something #or do it for free but having to go to like a pokécenter or something #i'll never agree that exp share is bad though sorry #pokémon #ok but about the 'i feel bad for kids these days with these ugly designs/lame 3D models' thing #yeah i have news for you every gen has its ugly/stupid pokémon.#dude look at exeggcute #and some of the oldest spritework is hideous #granted the ds era spritework was beautiful #but i don't see what is so bad about the 3D models of today? they're both nice...#dude play an indie game or something if it's that important to you idk #it will never be the 90s again. it will never be the 00s again. i'm sorry.

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crinege · 8 months

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so in Budapest there is this wonderful open air art installation every year with billboards made of submitted art pieces aiming to capture current events and feelings

each year there is an empty billboard for visitors to draw on and this time around I definitely have a favourite doodle

#good omens #ineffable husbands #hungarian #budapest #arc kiállítás #this is especially touching and important as lgbt rights are currently crumbling in hungary #many of the featured art pieces also touch on the subject of homophobia and transphobia in the country and the current government #mine

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burrythebusy · 1 year

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hot and cold

(Warmth emanates from the skin. Indirect contact seeps through any barrier of fabric and deep below the surface. It spreads warmth throughout his blood, but it is also a coolness that falls over his body. Warm water and a cool breeze. To what extent does that make up a touch from someone whom he struggles to understand sometimes? But understanding and knowing are two separate things. And he knows this means something. He knows he wants to feel it again. The next step is to understand why. Then maybe the chance to take another step closer will present itself to him. And maybe that step will be as simple as a touch, just like this one. Maybe I'll be one step closer to you).

#hirano to kagiura #hirakagi #hirano taiga #kagiura akira #hirano and kagiura #kagihira #i could go on about how hirano sees kagiura for days #and vice versa #but god #vol 4 has me in shambles #the subject of touch has always been important but now its getting somewhere different #its moving #like its beginning to shift in Hirano's mind #GAH

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sunofmoon · 1 year

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nothing gets me out of my head that verratti is an amazing guy and super cool, but a part of me fully believes that one of the reasons why leo approached him is because ney appreciates him as a player and as a friend

#yes i am touching this subject again #for me leo made friends with verratti because he knows he is important to ney #despite being pushed around all the time poor verratti is so cool #neymessi #neymessi + verratti #verrassi #neyratti #leo messi #neymar #marco verratti

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toxooz · 1 year

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idk if you've been asked this question before, but if angels and demons exist in the wheelbitten universe, does that mean that if jesus was the son of god, does that mean that he was some kind of ultra-powerful nephili?

(also do nephilim even exist in wheelbitten?)

uuuh i'd honestly imagine he'd be about the same in the wheel bitten universe give or take or there would be more theories on what he looked like and if he was actually a monster and what monster he would be and all the division that would cause idk same with the bible it'd pretty much be the same with maybe some pages not existing and more pages existing and whatever changes in belief that would ensue 🤷‍♀️ same goes with all the religions basically

#im not rlly interested in changing too much of religion bc u know damn well thats a whole tub of worms #most of it should be implied and whatever theories could probably be true #im only really willing to touch on the whole demons taking physical form and the false angels thing #but otherwise im more than willing to keep my hands up on the subject of religion in this universe #even now im sure im forgetting something thats probably important to say but im just one forgetful bitch #dont get me wrong im sure there could be a whole decades worth of fleshing out this worlds religion and how the vast range of monsters affe #ts that but ffs i made the universe for monsters and skateboarding lmfao #but YES ollie gets hella fucked up and almost dies in a church bc he accidentally looked into an angels eyes #which drives his issues in the story a little bit that i will touch on but thats an isolated incident

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rabarbarzcukrem · 10 months

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Incest in Utena

(warning: long.

...and probably incohesive)

So, I have once encountered an opinion that Revolutionary Girl Utena doesn't take a definitive anti-incest stance. This person argued that while there are abusive and unhealthy relationships in the show, their toxicity doesn't stem from them being incestuous, but from the abuse itself. So in their opinion, incest wasn't presented as being directly related to abuse in Utena.

And I disagree. I think that to ignore and overlook the incestuous elements in Utena, to say that they simply happened to be that way with no purpose and connection to be made to their abusive nature, is to do a great disservice to the creators and the show itself. For a series that is so complex in its ambiguity and usage of metaphors, that crafts its symbolism so deliberately, to simply put such a major factor into the story without intention of a deeper reading is just... extremely unlikely?

I think familial dynamics play a crucial part in relations between characters. When in comes to the Kaoru siblings, for example, the central point of their obsession with each other is their shared childhood, and the unique bond between them, on the account of them being twins.

It's also interesting how often the show blurs the lines between romantic interest and familial love. Kozue's possessiveness over her brother, which at first glance resembles jealousy, can also be read as a deep longing for Miki's understanding and affection that she used to get when they were children. Her brother is fixated on his idealized vision of her, perfect and pure. His distaste for her sexual relations with other men also comes off as a desire to keep her to himself - which may lead to an incestuous interpretation. Their unhealthy fixation on the past stems from a desire to restore the special connection that they lost when they started growing up, even though its perfection may have not existed in the first place. The innocent world of their youth, where they were free of worries and completely compatible. They share a deep longing for closeness with each other, but the fact that they grew up into very different people, whose worldviews are in conflict, makes it impossible for them to regain it. I think it could be also quite useful to take their parents into the account - whose separation and cold treatment of their children played a part into shaping the tight connection between the two siblings. They are the closest two people can be, they share everything - their room, the milkshakes, their parents, their blood, their memories and history. They are (to each other) the only person that could ever understand what the other went (and is going) through. And yet they don't. Their siblinghood and kinship is the very basis of their relationship and it could have never become this intense if they had not been twins.

The lack of love from the parents being the factor that brings the two siblings closer together, is a phenomenon that also occurs in Nanami and Touga's storyline. The girl has become thoroughly dependent on her brother and has built her entire identity and personhood around being his sister, which starts falling apart the moment she finds out they aren't blood related. This stems from the concept prevalent in the whole series - that familial relationships are fundamentally superior to chosen ones. This notion is supposedly true because of the fact that blood relationships are something one is born into - they are stronger, natural, and eternally binding. It's not difficult to notice how easily this belief can be used to diminish the meaning of abuse in the family and prevent the victim from pursuing escape. And it is used that way, both in the show, as well as in real life.

Nanami is aware of how insignificant the girls Touga dates are to him, and has accepted his way of evaluating people as her own. She thinks of them as vermins, after all. But while he can play with their feelings and discard them one after the other, she will always be his sister, which grants her a right to Touga's affection and a place by his side for the rest of their lives.

However, the fact that she feels the need to assert her superiority over other girls so frequently and violently clearly shows that the relationship between the siblings is far from stable and points to Nanami's deep insecurities, resulting from her brother's manipulation. He deliberately witholds affection from Nanami as a form of control and purposefully maintains the ambiguity of their relationship. This specific type of emotional abuse she faces can only happen if they are siblings and is very closely related to the pseuo-incestous nature of their bond, resulting from the very problematic environment that the two have grown up in and Nanami's feelings being twisted and used by Touga to his advantage.

Nanami prides herself in being "in love" with her brother only as long as she doesn't realize what that entails. The moment she recognizes the implications of her behavior and sees the consequences of a real incestuous relationship, it immediately becomes clear that this is not what she has ever desired. But it is her separation from Touga that allows her to do that, and to wonder about who she is and what is it that she really wants.

And so we move onto the most abusive incestuous relationship in the series, which is thought to be the one every other relationship in the show mirrors in some way... Akio and Anthy's. This example is the primary reason why I think that omitting the connection between incest and abuse means misunderstanding one of the core elements of the show. The very reason Anthy keeps on enduring her torment is the fact that Akio/Dios is her brother. He's her only family - the one person always tied to her, that has seen all of her, that knows and has experienced what she had done - and will not leave her.

The knowledge that Akio will always be her brother is a curse - but a comforting one. It absolves Anthy of having to experience the new, which is scary. After all, a coffin is a cage and a prison, but is it not safe? She stays both because of this resignation and fear, and because she holds onto the sweet memory of a person who used to love her, and who she loved in return. One could argue that Anthy perceives herself as deserving of this suffering simply because of being a witch - but upon a closer look it becomes obvious that Anthy is a witch...because she is Akio's sister. It's outright stated in the play performed by the shadow girls that the reason why she could not become his princess is the fact that she's related to him. We are shown later, in the true version of events, that Anthy locked Dios away out of love and care for her brother, but that becomes twisted into selfishness and jealousy in the play. This is also a way to shift the blame for Anthy's abuse onto her - "Isn't this what you wanted?"

Again, we encounter the phenomenon of the line between platonic affection and romantic desire being extremely thin. However, it's not entirely clear if this is simply a way to visualize the intensity of the complicated feelings between the characters, and to obscure the true meaning and nature of them by symbolism (as Utena often does) or something that is supposed to be read as a commentary on the omnipresent sexualization in Ohtori/society. Perhaps it it both.

And now... How does Utena fit into all of this? She is an orphan - a fact that is frequently overlooked and treated as a "protagonist thing" that makes a simple yet impactful backstory. But it is crucial to Utena's personal journey and the way she perceives Akio and Anthy's relationship. She doesn't have any close family that we know of, no point of reference to what healthy familial bonds look like. This is the main reason she stays ignorant and oblivious of Anthy's abuse for so long.

When it comes to Akio's advances and her own feelings towards him, it induces a certain sense of wrongness and unease in her (although she explains it to herself using incorrect reasons: Akio's engagement status, and not the massive power and age imbalance between them). But the way Anthy is treated and her strange behavior goes unquestioned by Utena, as she's always able to explain it by thinking of it as a part of a perfectly normal sibling relationship.

A lot more can be said about incest in Utena - its role in the system of Ohtori, or how gender and age play into it (I haven't even mentioned Tsuwabuki...) But it seems evident to me that the familal dynamics are inherently tied to the toxicity and abuse that occurs in the relationships discussed. It is purposeful. All instances of incest in Utena are shown to be harmful and this element is never excused or glossed over.

Because this contrast between blood bonds and the bonds one builds (for Anthy, between Akio and Utena) is crucial to understanding the show, and is precisely the thing that makes Utena's queerness so revolutionary. Instead of compliance and conformity, it signifies defiance, choice, agency and freedom. Akio's control is built upon the notion that he's the only one able to accept Anthy for the terrible witch she truly is, but this is not true, and Utena proves that. She experiences cruelty at Anthy's hands, she's stabbed and betrayed by her, and yet doesn't give up on her. Anthy can only stop being afraid of the world beyond Akio once she sees that it is worth it, that there is a person out there, waiting for her. That she is not forever doomed by being Akio's sister, and the outside world holds hope and love for her.

#don't treat this as some deep dive #these are just a few thoughts #rgu #revolutionary girl utena #also I love how Ikuharas commentary touches on this subject #I just think it's sad that the criticism of rgu is often 'it contains incest' when the way it shows it is so complex and worth analyzing #like. it may sound weird but the incest part is important !#moje

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esperderek · 5 months

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Hbomberguy did a pretty good job pointing out how Somerton has tried to take up the air of modern queer creators, stealing the works they made to little or no money or exposure, and using them to bolster his own fame. It's a truly reprehensible act.

But I feel like it's also important to briefly touch on what he stole from the past.

The Celluloid Closet is a backbone text on queerness and cinema. Like, if you're at all interested in the subject, please read the book, and watch the doc. Yes, the language will be outdated. It was written in 1981 and the doc published in 1995. Language evolves. I was fortunate enough to both read the book and see the documentary in the early 2000s, when I attended university.

It was written by Vito Russo, who held a Masters in film and a desire to fight for queer rights after witnessing the Stonewell riots. The Celluloid Closet was first a live lecture presentation, then a book. He would try to get the book made into a documentary in the early years, and after he died, others picked up that torch to carry on his work and to pay respect to the man.

Vito Russo was also one of the co-founders of GLAAD. He was a co-founder of ACT UP. You may have, if you've watched documentaries or seen news stories about the AIDS crisis, seen parts of his speech, Why We Fight. He protested, advocated, and educated even as people he knew and loved died, and he himself was dying.

As Hbomberguy notes in his doc, he would go on to pass in 1990. This was a man who fought his ass off, even while dying, for a better tomorrow and better representation.

The fact that Somerton stole his work is beyond insulting to the queer history, and queer film history, that he purports to give a shit about.

#hbomberguy #james somerton #queer history #film history #lgbtqiia+#vito russo

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imsobadatnicknames2 · 4 months

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Wish I had been able to articulate this sooner but the current wave of discourse about Cozy Wholesome Farming Games really shows once again that a lot of people's metric for the line that divides "smart person doing good, thoughtful analysis" from "terminally online freak looking too deep into into shit to start pointless discourse" is when they look deep enough to find something to criticize in a Popular Thing.

Like. The takes "Stardew Valley is an anticapitalist tale about the importance of community because in it the members of this small rural community band together to kick out the Costco analogue" and "The fantasy of landwonership on which games like Stardew Valley are predicated on is kinda bourgeois and the fact that it's considered politically neutral enough to be a common subject matter for games explicitly labelling themselves as Cozy or Wholesome speaks to how entrenched it is in our our culture and art" attribute roughly equivalent weight and importance to the politics of a cutesy farming game, but one of them is very popular and widely liked and the other gets you anons like "Uhm it's literally just a hecking cute farming simularino!? Touch grass lol you should be at the club lol do you even enjoy stuff lol not everything is politics are you really trying to make my heckin' farmerino simulator problematic? Stop looking for politics in everything you're just looking for stuff to get mad at you are a tar pit" etc etc etc

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birdantlers · 8 months

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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

#artists on tumblr #Artistic #digital art #art history #anthropology #humanity #art discussion #art theory #skit yells

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taylor-titmouse · 2 months

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hey i want to talk about how you should be promoting your work as an erotic author/illustrator

i'm writing this up because the marketing aspect of my work as an erotic author/illustrator is a science to me, and also because i'm the guy who gets unreasonably annoyed when i see other creators not properly advertising their work. you presumably want to make money off your work. this post will be written under the assumption you want to make money off your work but are doing a bad job at it. it will be very confrontational. if you read this and feel attacked you're right and i am attacking you.

this is geared toward selling erotic comics/writing/books/art as products. i will probably write more than one post about this subject so if i didn't touch on something you want to know more about, comment/send me an ask and i'll keep it in mind for the next one.

i will start with my first and least specific but most important point:

DON'T GET FUCKING CUTE

hi are you paying attention. i'm gripping you by the sides of your face. do not get fucking cute with what you are trying to sell. you are not a big enough property to get cute, nobody LIKES it when big properties get cute, and you are selling porn. you have to own this. you have to be up front about this. don't be tongue in cheek, don't be all teehee i wonder what this could be~, don't be secretive. you are selling a product. you have to fucking act like it. you are an adult selling pornography to other adults. i am GRIPPING your HEAD you NEED to understand this.

and to be clear when i say 'cute' i mean coy. i don't mean cutesy, as in the aesthetic. you can be as hello kitty pastel ten emojis a post uwu as you like when you're building your audience and generating hype. but when you start trying to sell, don't be vague, don't be sarcastic, don't mislabel your work as a joke and assume everyone is on it. because they're not.

you must always assume 75% of the people seeing the thing you are advertising have no fucking idea who you are. and that includes a huge chunk of the people who already follow you. they do not know who you are or what you've been working on for two months or why they should care about it. they just got here. somebody just reposted it. they are seeing it for the first time. most people are only looking at social media for a tiny chunk of their day. they are not keeping up with you. you cannot get cute about what you are trying to sell because nobody knows what it is until you tell them.

okay are you still with me. we are going to talk about clarity now.

YOU GOTTA TELL ME WHAT IT IS

good lord the amount of times i have gone to buy somebody's comic or book and had no idea what's actually in it or what it's about. who are the characters? why should i care about them? what do they do in it? what is the premise of this thing you want me to spend $5 on? why would you not tell me? i'm shaking you again. please i have to know what i'm buying i only have so much money to spend on porn.

porn, arguably more than any other genre, relies on knowing exactly what is in it. you do not want to surprise your readers with a kink they were unaware of! and on the flip side, you do not want to miss out on your target audience! if your book contains a hot spider babe laying eggs in an elf, you have to say so. not just so people who don't want to read about eggs know it isn't for them, but so the people who are egg crazy can see that and go "oh fuck YES i love EGGS here is my $5 and an extra $2 tip for catering to me specifically". a contents/features list is as much an advertisement as it is a warning!

as for re: who the characters are and why should i care, i'm sorry but you need to learn how to write sales copy. you have to write blurbs. you have to get good at the shit that goes on the back of a book. we all hate it but we have to do it. i want to know who the characters are and what the context is. i, personally, am not interested in contemporary stories as much as fantasy and historical. please tell me what genre this porn exists in so i know if it aesthetically appeals to me. pull some books off your shelves and see how they do it. hell man go look at mine.

while you're there, note that every single book of mine has a sample of what's in it. this feels like such a no-brainer to me but again! the amount of times i have gone to buy somebody's work and they don't show me what their work looks like! you gotta give me the first page or two! just enough that i know if i like the way your writing sounds, or the way you draw your comics! i don't know you! i am not going to trust that you're good at what you do just based on a cover. the cover is to get me to this step, it is not the only step. you have to show me that you're worth spending my money on!

to put it less cynically, you want to catch my interest. you want me to go 'oh i want to see more of this', you want me to go 'ahh i want to know where this goes!' you need to get me invested and craving more. earn my $5!!!

YOU HAVE TO MAKE IT EASY TO GIVE YOU MONEY

hey go look at your bio right now. go look at your pinned post. do you have a link to your patreon there? do you have a link to your itchio/gumroad/whatever? do i have to click more than once to get to the places you want me to go to give you money? why? why are you making me click twice? have we learned nothing from every website making you click an extra time when they make some stupid UI update and how much it pisses us off? i have already given up, i have forgotten you, i am not giving you my $5 today. put your links in the easiest places to get to them.

god literally as i was writing this post i went to go find somebody's itchio to see how they described their work and it was not anywhere on their profile. grabbing you and shaking you PUT THE LINK WHERE I CAN FIND IT. don't make it hard! make it easy! i am a dickhead sitting on the toilet scrolling, saw your post, and was interested enough to read further. but you made me go to your bio to find your linktree and oops i have already gone back to my timeline to look at the boobies in the next post. stop wasting precious bio space on DNIs and put your fuckin links there!!!

this is more for the twitter people, but: just put the link in the damn post. just say the word commission. just say it's for patreon. "wuh wuh the algorithm" it is not the damn algorithm it's that everybody hates advertising and nobody wants to retweet ads. putting slashes in the words doesn't do anything and you look like a fool. i have posted so much art that says it's 'a commission for ___" and it did exactly as good as any other art despite having the word commission in it. and by doing the slashes you just made it impossible for anybody to search your account for your commission information (which should be at the VERY LEAST in a post under your pinned tweet if you're not actively posting about them being open).

okay that went on a tangent i'm going to back to the point of putting the link in the tweet. put it in the first post. not in the first reply. don't tell them to go to your bio. put it in the post people are actually going to share. it's fine to put more information in the thread but people are only ever going to share the first post. so put the link there. you have to make it easy. putting links in tweets can hurt you algorithmically, even in the replies. so you're better off having it in the post that actually gets seen and shared. i don't want to open the tweet and scroll to get to your sales page where i ASSUME you will have put all the information anyway. put it in the tweet that just got retweeted by itself onto my dash!

also you have to share it a ton of times. i repost my shit every few hours when i'm trying to push a new product. as i said before people are not 24/7 looking at their timelines. they missed it the first time. they missed it the second time. they didn't get paid yet that week but they were after the eighth time and you reminded them again so they finally bought it. that i will still get sales every time i repost a book ad weeks after release says there are always people who missed it, or who only just showed up.

abandon your pride and shill. shills pay their bills. anyone who gets annoyed about it isn't giving you money in the first place. don't worry about looking like a sell out. don't apologize for plugging your own work. post about it often, post about it in different ways. post about it. post about it. you are not going to make money if people don't know you have something to sell them. if you want to make a career out of it, you need to act like it.

I DON'T HAVE A FOURTH POINT

kisses your forehead. i'm sorry for yelling at you. i've been making and publishing and selling adult art for the past two-three years and have got myself to the point where it pays my rent, and i got there by paying attention to what does and does not work.

please do your best to make money. i want you to make money.

as i said above i plan to write more posts on this subject, such as cover design, how to actually write sales copy, and best practices with running a patreon, but if there's things you would want to hear more about leave a comment or send an ask! i will probably be less aggressive on future topics. these are just things that have grinded my gears for a grip.

#tt talks writing #tt talks drawing

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vetyr · 18 days

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hi, i ireally love your work and i don't know if you've answered this before but, what kinds of studies do you do or how did you learn color theory? i wanna get better at rendering and anatomy but im having trouble TT TT

Hi! Long answer alert. Once a chatterbox, always a chatterbox.

When I started actively learning how to draw about 10 1/2 years ago, I exclusively did graphite studies in sketchbooks. Here's a few examples—I mostly stuck to doing line drawings to drill basic shapes/contours and proportions into my brain. The more rendered sketches helped me practice edge control & basic values, and they were REALLY good for learning the actual 3D structure behind what I was drawing.

I'd use reference images that I grabbed from fitness forums, Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, and some NSFW places, but you could find adequate ref material from figure drawing sites like Line of Action. LoA has refs for people (you can filter by clothed/unclothed, age, & gender), animals, expressions, hands/feet, and a few other useful things as well. Love them.

Learning how to render digitally was a similar story; it helped a lot that I had a pretty strong foundation for value/anatomy going in. I basically didn't touch color at all for ~2 years (except for a few attempts at bad digital or acrylic paint studies), which may not have been the best idea. I learned color from a lot of trial and error, honestly, and I'm pretty sure this process involved a lot of imitation—there were a number of digital/traditional painters whose styles I really wanted to emulate (notably their edge control, color choices, value distributions, and shape design), so I kiiind of did a mixture of that + my own experimentation.

For example, I really found Benjamin Björklund's style appealing, especially his softened/lost edges & vibrant pops of saturated color, so here's a study I did from some photograph that I'm *pretty* sure was painted with him in mind.

Learning how to detail was definitely a slow process, and like all the aforementioned things (anatomy/color/edge control/values/etc.) I'm still figuring it out. Focusing on edge control first (that is, deciding on where to place hard/soft edges for emphasizing/de-emphasizing certain areas of the image) is super useful, because you can honestly fool a viewer into thinking there's more detail in a piece than there actually is if you're very economical about where you place your hard edges.

The most important part, to me, is probably just doing this stuff over and over again. You're likely not going to see improvement in a few weeks or even a few months, so don't fret about not getting the exact results you want and just keep studying + making art. I like to think about learning art as a process where you *need* to fail and make crappy art/studies—there's literally no way around it—so you might as well fail right now. See, by making bad art you're actually moving forward—isn't that a fun prospect!!

It's useful to have a folder with art you admire, especially if you can dissect the pieces and understand why you like them so much. You can study those aspects (like, you can redraw or repaint that person's work) and break down whether this is art that you just like to look at, or if it's the kind of art that you want to *make.* There's a LOT of art out there that I love looking at, probably tens of thousands of styles/mediums, but there's a very narrow range that I want to make myself.

I've mentioned it in some ask reply in the past, but I really do think looking at other artist's work is such a cheat code for improving your own skills—the other artist does the work to filter reality/ideas for you, and this sort of allows you to contact the subject matter more directly. I can think of so many examples where an artist I admired exaggerated, like, the way sunlight rested on a face and created that orange fringe around its edge, or the greys/dull blues in a wheat field, or the bright indigo in a cast shadow, or the red along the outside of a person's eye, and it just clicked for me that this was a very available & observable aspect of reality, which had up until that point gone completely unnoticed! If you're really perceptive about the art you look at, it's shocking how much it can teach you about how to see the world (in this particular case I mean this literally, in that the art I looked at fully changed the way I visually processed the world, but of course it has had a strong effect on my worldviews/relationships/beliefs).

Thanks so much for sending in a question (& for reading, if you got this far)! I read every single ask I receive, including the kind words & compliments, which I genuinely always appreciate. Best of luck with learning, my friend :)

#answers to asks #illustration #art advice #art help #drawing #digital art

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malusokay · 6 months

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becoming a better student ₊˚⊹♡

Prepare for your classes ˚୨୧⋆｡˚ ⋆

Wake up on time. We don't want to be stressed first thing in the morning, right?

Eat breakfast. So you will be able to better focus in class.

Assigned reading and homework. Make sure you are prepared for your classes!! :)

Review your notes. Going through some of your flashcards before class is really helpful.

Check your bag and charge your devices. Ensure you have everything you need: Books, homework, chargers, pens, water...

In Class ˚୨୧⋆｡˚ ⋆

Listen and pay attention. You can save yourself a lot of trouble by simply paying attention, trust me.

Take notes. My favourite note-taking method is the Cornell method; I can make a separate post on that!! <3

"Quick notes." If you struggle with note-taking, try taking quick and messy notes. You can clean them up once you get home!!

Engage. If you have any questions or don't understand something, make sure to ask!! Most teachers really appreciate students who speak up. :)

No distractions. Turn off your phone, no chatting, you'll be glad...

After class ˚୨୧⋆｡˚ ⋆

Finish your assignments as soon as you can. Go home, put on a cosy outfit, have a snack, and get working!! <3

Prepare flash cards. A great way of reviewing your notes, too... :)

Update your Study schedule. Write down any assignment and due dates, reading you must do, upcoming tests, etc...

Clean up your notes. Review them, highlight the important parts, and maybe even make them look cute!! :)

Don't avoid topics/Subjects you dislike. I know it is tempting, but you can't avoid them forever, so you might as well get them done

Structure and routine ˚୨୧⋆｡˚ ⋆

Goals and Priorities. Keep them realistic and manageable.

Time management. Having a set schedule makes studying less overwhelming; it takes some discipline but is so worth it!! <3

Develop a routine. Figure out what works best for you; I prefer studying in the morning or at night.

No "zero days". Even if you can only do a bit, do it!! NO. ZERO. DAYS.

Remember your goals. Dreams will keep you motivated; remind yourself of what you're working for!! <3

Self-care and balance ˚୨୧⋆｡˚ ⋆

Don't forget about your hobbies. You need to do things that make you happy, so make time for those things!!

Maintain a balanced diet. I know chocolates and junk are tempting, especially when you are busy studying all day, but you're not doing yourself any favours.

Sleep. Sleep. Sleep. 8 Hours. Non-negotiable.

Exercise regularly. Even if it's just a walk, put on some headphones, listen to music, and give yourself a break. <3

Care for your social life. Reach out to your friends, make plans, and keep in touch; a good work-life balance is critical!!

Romanticising ˚୨୧⋆｡˚ ⋆

Study dates. Meet up with your friends at a cosy cafe, discuss your work, and have some fun!! Studying doesn't have to be all serious all the time ;)

Silly Pinterest boards. Visualising your goals will help you find motivation!!

Music to set the mood. I have a bunch of playlists on my Spotify that might help!! <3

Cosy sweater and candles. The cosy Rory Gilmore vibes haha...

Getting a coffee before class. A little treat before things get serious... Simple pleasures, you know? :)

Babes, The hiatus is OVER, and I'm finally back!! I got a lot of asks on studying, burnout, and school in general, so I thought, why not start off with a little student guide?? I Hope October has been kind to you, and school hasn't been too overwhelming (though I know it, unfortunately, has been for many of you), and I'm glad to finally be back!! <33

As always, Please feel free to add your own suggestions and tips in the comments!!

✩‧₊*:・love ya ･:*₊‧✩

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