#I feel more and more discouraged to post my art because nobody ever reblogs it so it never catches on

[rextheravenous]

Should I post art from earlier? It's probably not even going to get more than 4 notes but idk

#I feel more and more discouraged to post my art because nobody ever reblogs it so it never catches on #and ofc I don't have the pretty digital style everyone wants spoonfed to them (I'm a traditional artist) so nobody even cares about it much #ever since I stopped doing fandom art it's like all my supporters have dropped off the face of the earth <:( #my art blog is @ravenousarts in case anyone simply Didn't Know I was posting art

[obsidiannebula]

but when I put my work out there no one gives a shit. even the AI gets more of a reaction out of others, even if its purely negative. admit it, people only started to pretend to care about smaller artists and writers to stick it to the AI techbros

You're experiencing something that every creative on the planet has been struggling with since forever: the crushing disappointment of "I worked really hard on this but nobody even seems to notice it."

We've all been there. It sucks. We tend to feel a need for recognition and validation when we do or make something. Just about every artist or writer on here has experienced that disappointment, and wondered in despair if it's even worth continuing to make and post the things they make. After all, why put in all that effort to make something and share it, when nobody seems to care? Why keep investing so much into something you love, only to share it and find that no one else appreciates it like you do?

Well, if you've been in creative circles for a while, you've actually probably seen some answers to this question. See, we HAVE cared about our fellow small creators since long before """AI""" was really a concern. For years we've been making and sharing posts to help and uplift each other. We've told each other, don't create with the hope of getting fame and adulation, or you'll almost certainly be disappointed. We've told each other, create for your friends, for the 3 people who are as deeply invested in your rarepair or niche fandom as you are, create for yourself, create for the joy of creation. We've spread posts reminding people that a like is nice, but if you really enjoy someone's art, it helps the creator much more to reblog it, because it increases the work's visibility and reach. We have encouraged people to commission artists- and we have actually done so! See my little icon in the corner there? I commissioned that from a friend, who is a small artist themself. (@oriathura here and on the website formerly known as Twitter, in case anyone would like to commission them!)

The creative community has been supporting each other for a long time, whether you were aware of it or not. I've been on Tumblr since 2017, and have been following artists and writers that whole time, and began posting my own art and writing soon after joining. I have seen thousands of posts of the sort I described, trying to help motivate, reassure and uplift other creators. I have seen friends and mutuals get discouraged by the lack of response to their art, and wonder if they should give up. I have seen them carry on anyway, and I have seen them grow and develop as artists. I have posted my own work and gotten silence in response, and I have persisted anyway and continued to improve my craft and make work that I am proud of, regardless of how many people saw it or validated me through praise.

Because I wanted something to exist, and I made it exist, and I deserve to be proud of that. No matter how many people saw it or liked it.

You didn't ask for advice, but I'm going to offer some, and you and any other creatives reading this can take it or leave it, as you like:

*Find community. Follow some creative people, maybe acquire some creative mutuals. Join a Discord server for artists and/or writers. Get involved with a small group of fellow creators and hype each other up!

*Learn how to tag your posts. Don't spam a bunch of unrelated tags, of course, but learn how to add plenty of relevant ones. Lots of people follow tags for characters, fandoms, and even the "my writing" and "fiction" tags- I know I do. That will put your post on the dash of some people who are following those tags. The more people who see it, the more likely it is to reach the people who will enjoy it- because no matter the subject or even quality of the work, there IS an audience for it. Following and posting in these tags may even help you find community!

*Make something with no intention of ever sharing it. If you love to create but find yourself discouraged and frustrated by a lack of positive response when you share your work, make something just for yourself and keep it to yourself. Learn to appreciate creation for creation's sake, for the joy you can bring yourself. If you're feeling really bold, make something and then destroy it. Rip it up, burn it, hit delete. Art is valuable even when it is fleeting.

*Create for an event. One of the best things that ever happened to my writing was participating in TAZ Pride Week 2018. I wrote a new fic every day for 8 days, pushing the limits of my creativity and writing skill. I tagged each work with the event tag, allowing others to find it and the organizer to reblog it to the event blog, which lots of people were following. Many people saw and enjoyed my work as a result. I saw the work of numerous others and was inspired. I even gained my first artsy mutual (aside from my irl friends) because of this event, so this can also help you with building community! People organize art and writing events all the time, especially for fandoms. Seek these out and see how you can get involved!

Sometimes, creating can feel like thankless work. But that doesn't mean it has no value. If it meant something to you, it was important. And it may become important to someone else one day. Some of my works that flopped hardest on publication are the ones that still get the occasional note or AO3 comment here and there months and years later, because they appealed to very few people, but those few people are very excited on the rare occasion they find something that scratches the particular itch they have!

When I was in 7th grade, we read Summer of My German Soldier. I don't know that I'd recommend the book to anyone else; in truth I don't remember much from it, aside from the main character getting a bad perm. But one quote from that book has stuck with me my whole life. It led to me the understanding of creation as a powerful, almost sacred act, regardless of how many people view it. For "there is more nobility in building a chicken coop than in destroying a cathedral."

#asked and answered #hourglass-meadow #creation #long post

[steam-draws]

Announcement:

Alright, I have officially had it with Tumblr not giving a shit about their artists. It is extremely discouraging to share a work that you've worked hard on for hours, days, weeks, or even months, only to get a couple likes. I know nobody is obligated to share every work they see, but small artists like myself rarely get any reblogs at all. I have some followers who add likes to my work but have never reblogged a single thing. Ever. Nobody looks at your likes, and most people have that option turned off. I am done pouring my heart and soul into a piece of art that nobody will care about. I didn’t think this was too much to ask for.

To those few who have supported me and shared my work, thank you so much. I see you and I appreciate you. You’re the reason artists get any exposure (for work that we’re offering for free), and that’s awesome.

That being said, I am moving to Instagram. If I am only ever going to get likes on my work, I might as well move to a platform where that will benefit me. I am not deleting this blog, but I will no longer be posting here for the time being. My other blogs will remain active, but I will no longer be sharing my art there, either.

I love sharing my work with other people; lots of artists do. It’s a very human thing to want to show others something you made that you’re proud of. But trying to do this on Tumblr is just shouting into a void. Tumblr, unlike other platforms, works by reblogs. Likes and tags don’t circulate posts as well as they should. If your work is never shared, no matter how many times you reblog it yourself, nobody will ever see it. That defeats the purpose of sharing anything in the first place. I have been told to just share my work because I’m proud of it, not for any attention. But that is the entire point of sharing it online. Otherwise I would just keep my work in my personal library, never to see the light of day. Wouldn’t you want to show people something you created? Wouldn’t it be discouraging to hear them say, “Yeah, I guess that’s kind of cool, but not enough for me to care?”

I hate having to do this, but my efforts over the years to be seen just haven’t been enough. I can't make anybody understand what this feels like, as much as I’ve tried. Even the PSA posts I’ve shared about supporting artists get more notes and reblogs than my actual art. That doesn’t make any sense. That’s a very transparent way of showing just what one thinks of someone’s art.

If you are still interested in following me, my Instagram name is "steam_draws." It's the same name as this blog but with an underscore instead of a hyphen.

I hope one day smaller artists will get the recognition and support they work so hard for.

~ Thank you for reading.

#artists on tumblr #my post #I might still post the mental health definitions post here though #since a lot of people need to see it #but probably to my main blog

[saintgale]

I’m just. Venting a little about stupid art things.

It’s super frustrating to me when popular artists complain constantly about not getting enough views/likes/engagement/whatever on their art. Like, I get it. Especially once I guess someone has gotten used to a certain amount of interaction, be that likes or comments or whatever, but here I am still bitterly happy if I can get like. 10 likes on an art post. (Which, thank you so much to those of you who do, it’s like each and every one is a little smile that lights up my day, and I appreciate it very much.) Here and there I will get one that “blows up” to me (these are fanart posts, and I’m only talking like, a few hundred notes, which for me is a mindblowing amount), but it’s disheartening and discouraging when I put so much time, so much into making art and there’s nothing to show for it.

I know I shouldn’t, and I do not, make art to get engagement on my posts, and I have long ago given up the “gauging my self worth on how much interaction I get,” even though that mindset is STILL lodged into me (”you don’t get engagement on your artwork because your artwork is bad”), that I am not good enough, that I will never be good enough, that my art sucks. At the end of the day I’m drawing things like my characters because they make me happy, but damn if it wouldn’t be nice to be at a place, like those popular artists, who constantly have people asking about their ocs and reblogging their oc art and all that. I know it’s not going to happen to me, and that’s okay. But when I see people with like, consistently hundreds or thousands of interactions on their content, who have thousands of followers, and then are like “I’m underrated” and all that, it’s like, then what does that make the rest of us “invisible” artists?

I will make a small disclaimer up front that I’m not upset at their success (if anything I’m happy for it), it’s not anything like that, it’s more frustration at myself as to why I can’t reach that, and frustration that the consumer media culture has made it so that nothing is ever “enough.” (And I get that wanting to still grow and improve is perfectly valid.) But the whole phenomenon of making someone who has tens of thousands of followers and constant interaction with their content feel as if that still isn’t “enough” is really awful, for them and for everyone else who can’t “make it” like that.

And look. I know my art’s not “great.” It’s certainly not “professional” quality or anything like that, and I constantly struggle to find what I like about it or to just refrain from putting myself down about it. And part of the reason is the shit like this, the feeling that “no one likes it” and that it’s “not good enough” to get interaction or commissions. And I know, I know deep down that’s not true, that on the technical side I am the same skill level as some of these more popular people, then I think, well there must be something wrong with what I’m doing or something wrong with me.

It’s like. You pour your heart and soul out into trying to make things and trying to improve and you throw it out there and it just sits there. And rots.

It just kills you inside. And yes, there’s that stubborn part of me that persists and will always persist, that I make art for me, I make art because I like to, I do not make art to measure my self-worth or my success, I do not make art to try to beg for interaction, I make art because it makes me happy. But at the end of it all, it’s still a slap in the face. It still hurts, you know?

Especially when you try, and you’ve been trying for years, and it’s never amounted to anything. Years, and there must be something wrong with me, because I’m still stuck here, in the same place, I think with even less interaction than I used to get (I think that’s just because some people have moved on, and some people just left bc of the whole tumblr bullshit thing, which is totally understandable and okay), but what do you do after that? There’s no hope left, really. It’s just the feeling that you’re going to be a nobody forever, that no one cares, no one will care, that your art will always suck, and there’s nothing you can do about it no matter how hard you try. (So why try anymore?)

Also another thing I’m just salty and bitter about that’s somewhat related: not being able to sell commissions when I see popular artists around similar skill levels charging even more than x2 my prices for some things and getting commissions constantly/people asking about them constantly. (Which I know of course doesn’t mean people will buy in that second scenario, but it’s still so frustrating.) This goes also to adopts, which I don’t do and don’t buy (no money even if I wanted to lol), but I see the “popular” designs go for several times the amount of designs with similar detail and all that, the only difference being they’re done by smaller artists. Which, yeah, I also know right now the whole world is fucked and we’re all trying to just scrape by and keep ourselves afloat. And buying art is a luxury, I know that and I think artists absolutely should be charging more for their work. It is just, again, frustrating and disheartening, that I can’t even make a decent living wage on things even when I do sell. (And, again, then it just goes back to the stupid little voice in my head that goes, “Dratz, your art isn’t worth that. No one wants to pay that much for your bad art.” And I know that’s all bs but it still stings and persists.)

Which, again, thank you from the bottom of my heart to those who do commission me. I appreciate you all and love drawing for you!

I really hope this doesn’t come off as me being ungrateful for all that I do have--I am very humbled and of course immensely thankful. Sorry I’m just not good at articulating my thoughts and feelings.

#shut up dratz #negative // #text post // #i'm sorry i'm just tired and sad

[bubbelpop2]

Stop turning Tumblr into a place where people consume content endlessly instead of sharing and creating it. Stop scrolling past posts. Stop only liking posts. For the love of fuck, reblog. Posts not getting any notes ACTIVELY discourages people from posting. It's why artists give up. It's why photographers give up. It's why a lot of the wonderful jokes and cursed humor that makes Tumblr Tumblr is dying.

Follower engagement is terrible. I have 200 something followers, and every time I make an original post, I only see about 6 notes, all of them likes. Likes do nothing. They don't make posts more visible. They're a glorified personal bookmark button. Nobody looks at your likes.

If you like something, reblog it. It's not just about notes. It's about visibility. Nobody will ever see my art, because nobody shares my art for other people to see it, and people rarely see my art in the tags. If you like something, there is NO reason not to reblog it.

Reblogging is free. It doesn't take any time. You can automatically reblog things without tagging them by pressing alt+r, or holding down the reblog button on mobile.

Honestly accounts that only like and never reblog are a leech to the Tumblr community, and remarkably selfish. I don't want them to follow me or interact with me.

Idiots who read this and think "this person just wants fame" have no reading comprehension it's not just about meaningless internet points. It's about exposure. Why would I make content if nobody is going to see it? Why tell a joke to an empty room? Why make a house if nobody is there to live in it? It feels hopeless.

#shut up bubbz

[anteakwa]

why i hate being an artist on tumblr

i’ve been wanting to make a post similar to this for a long time. ever since i began posting my art on tumblr, i’ve realized that it’s done absolutely nothing for me as an artist. this post is for every single artist out there who’s experienced this before.

tumblr is one of the only platforms where it’s easy to post and have people share your art. the reblog feature makes that easy. just click the button, and then that post will end up on your blog. this is a way better way of supporting your favorite artist than just liking the post—then everyone who follows you will see it, and possibly reblog it as well, giving the artist more and more exposure and making them feel better about the work they spent hours upon hours on. one of my most recent works has a 14:3 like to reblog ratio. the like button doesn’t mean anything. even if you don’t want to reblog it, just leave a comment or an ask. just a simple “your art is great!” is enough to make any artist smile. the only people who seem to reblog art anymore are kind mutuals who want to support their mutual. please, if you see art you like, don’t just like it. please reblog it. there are so many posts saying this, but it seems like nobody ever listens to this.

it’s unbelievably discouraging to watch your art that you spent three hours on get less than 20 notes because of the lack of reblogs. even as i opened up my own commissions, i’ve had to lower my prices from $5 to $2 just to hope to get some money as a 14 year old artist. please show your favorite artist more love.

#this is a rant but its free to reblog #connor.txt

[aroworlds]

As an Aro ace person I'm starting to really hate the ace community . I hate that Ace is umbrella, I hate that I have to use two words to explain I'll never be attracted to anyone ever and hence will spend my life alone . I feel the community is to obsessed with proving they still love that they need to pretend aro aces don't exist . And it leaves my soul hurting . I'm at the brink of suicide these days and it sucks because I don't know where I belong anymore and I'm feeling inhuman daily x.x

Anon, it breaks my heart that you’ve felt the need to send this in. It breaks my heart, because nobody should feel this way. Nobody should feel so isolated from and discouraged by their own community. This conversation shouldn’t be happening, anon, and that’s not on you–it never was and never will be. It’s on a situation, a shape of the community, and I think it says something profound that a few posts are generating other conversations and frustrations right now–I’ve seen it on this blog and on several others. I’ve seen it on several blogs just today!

I have a sense of a cork that’s been popped off the bottle, a hurt and a pain we’ve been holding in for too long coming out.

And I think that’s a good thing, because it’s time, past time, we had real conversations about the impact. That it isn’t a few aro-specs grinding their teeth and writing ranty posts about aro erasure. That this erasure and dismissal, this long-running amatonormativity and centering of romantic love (how many times have I seen alloromantic aces describe asexuality as “love without sexual attraction”?) has the potential to cause real wounds, real suffering, real isolation, real disconnect from a community that should provide support, real damage. Amatonormativity isn’t just fielding off questions from relatives about when we’re going to get married. Amatonormativity tells us that we are not the kind of humans society considers worthwhile, and you can’t live in this world without that weighing down on you.

None of us, not one of us, are strong enough not to be damaged by that: no human is or can be. It isn’t a failure in us. It’s a failure in everyone else. Some of us are better at hiding it, and some of us channel that pain into ranty posts or spite-motivated creativity, but we are all hurt by it.

Too many alloromantics brush off amatonormativity and the centring of alloromantic attraction as nothing, but it isn’t, and right now we deal with the pain of having our pain dismissed as nothing, even in spaces that are, ostensibly, meant to include us. It hurts worse from alloromantic aces because it feels like they should be better able to understand; ace-spec spaces feel like they should be more welcoming than they are. And I think it’s okay to feel hurt and even betrayed by that. We endure hate from outside together, all a-specs; we have every right to expect support, instead of erasure, inside.

Anon, as someone who deals with suicidal ideation myself, I do not miss the immense bravery it took from you to write about your pain and the way it makes you feel. But I want to thank you, too, for having the courage to be honest and real, to stand up as an example, to shine a real light on where erasure leads us.

I don’t have simple solutions to problems like the pressure of using ace as an umbrella term. (I’ve seen plenty of aro-aces talk about how they’d prefer to ID as aro alone but cannot because it isn’t accepted, and their loathing of ace as an umbrella term. If you feel this, I’d truly appreciate it if you could comment on this post as solidarity for our anon, because I know they’re not alone.) I also know that there are no simple solutions to mental illness and suicidal ideation, and they do not make amatonormativity easier to bear. I do think, though, that pride is the one real weapon we can bring to bear against a socialized worthlessness–pride and community.

As much as I don’t need an excuse to promote the aro-spec artist profiles, anon, I’d like you to go check them out. Read what other talented aros–including several aro-aces–are writing about being aro and creative. Go click on the links to their work–an awful lot of them have works available for free. There’s art and there’s stories, stories about aro-spec experiences, stories about resisting amatonormativity, stories about aro-spec and aro-ace feelings. Stories that normalise. We’re just getting started on building this canon, but it’s already a defiant cry that we are normal, we are wonderful, we are human, and it’s only going to get better.

(Likewise, check out all the fiction pieces submitted and reblogged here. Or the poetry. Or the artwork and visual pieces!)

Anyone who’s following this blog knows I write, that I tell stories. I do it because the world tells me that I don’t get to be the hero, that I am not deserving of being the hero, so I’ll break my hands on my words screaming fuck that. Even better, there’s a whole bunch of other aro-spec and aro-ace storytellers here who are doing the same. But I’ll tell you one thing I’ve learnt: it is easier, so much easier, to survive anything when there’s other people beside you. Stories are that person beside you. Stories are other aro-specs’ hopes and dreams.

I wouldn’t be alive today if not for the hope in the storytelling of others. It’s not enough by any means, but I hope it is the beginning of a feeling that the world, when it comes to aro-specs, is a thousand kinds of wrong and we do not have to listen to what it teaches us. If we can feel that, this kernel of understanding that amatonormativity is not only damaging but nonsensical against a world of wonderful and amazing and loved aro-spec people, it’s a little bit easier to survive it.

Anon, I know the aro-spec community alone isn’t enough for you, and it absolutely should not have to be, but I hope we here, at least, can work on making this space more supportive and welcoming of you. I want you here and I want you to belong here. If you are aro-spec in any way, this community is for you, and if we are not doing a good enough job of being welcoming to our own, come in and tell me, tell us. Because a community that isn’t devoted to celebrating and sheltering all our own, however different your experiences as an aro-spec may be from mine, isn’t one I wish to be part of.

Thank you so much, anon, for trusting me with your story.

(If folks are looking at starting spaces specifically for the support of aro-aces who feel alienated by the ace-spec community, please let me know and I’ll signal boost here. I may not be around a lot over the next week because I have a personal situation with my family that is unexpectedly on the precipice of being very awful, but I’ll get to it as soon as I can.)

#anon #ask #text #not media #discussion post #aro erasure #aroace #acespec community frustrations #suicidal ideation mention #mental illness #broader aspec discussions #aspec community #personal #mod chatter #arospec community #long post #very long post #extremely long post #aromanticism and asexuality

[donnerpartyofone]

21 Questions

Tagged by @getoutofmyhouse who had oddly similar answers to mine

Nickname: only the one I use here, that I gave myself--Claire Donner, which has to do with my famous love of cannibalism. Claire is my real first name, though.

Zodiac: I am so very cuspy. I was born at about a quarter to midnight on April 20, so I tend to relate to, and feel insulted by, the suppositions about Aries and Taurus equally. I’m one of those jerks who will tell you astrology is a bunch of hoo ha...and then drone on with my Many Esoteric Ideas about it, so I’ll just stop myself right here.

Height: 5’ nuthin is what I prefer to say...because saying I’m 5 and 3/4′ sounds a little like saying I’m 10 and a half years old.

Amount of sleep: It’s all fucked up. Until I got into my 30s I could, and would prefer to, sleep endlessly. Now I go to bed around 10 (depression), get up around 5 or 6 (being old), and for extra fun, I’ve developed this insomnia that often keeps me up from about 2am-5am. I try make the most of it by getting up, getting high, watching a movie or two, writing...basically just having a secret private day by myself. I’d really rather go back to just sleeping constantly though.

Last movie I saw: I saw GRETA in theaters tonight, which was ok. I guess I thought any Neil Jordan film would be headier than this, but watching Isabel Huppert just running around acting like an absolute maniac is a rare treat! My last video experience was RAW, which I put on to bother my husband right when we got home from the theater. (I think he liked it more than I originally did, to my surprise)

Last thing I googled: The correct spelling of Sylvia Likens’ last name. I’m obsessed with this type of crime where a group of people (usually a family and/or some of their friends and neighbors) fall into some kind of shared hysteria where they protractedly torture to death an acquaintance for no particular reason. Some times there’s an element of mystery as to why the victim didn’t leave while they were still able to, which suggests to me that the murdered person was just as much a victim of the groupthink as the perpetrators. Other example victims include Suzanne Capper, Vera Jo Reigle, and I think to some degree Sophie Lionnet, James Bulger, and Junko Furuta. (Also a crime they briefly discuss in the book Lords of Chaos, where several people murder a friend in their trailer, but I can’t remember it specifically enough to look up the names--the other last thing i tried to google) I keep thinking there should be a psychiatric and/or legal term for this kind of crime, but I’ve never heard one, so let me know if you got one!

Favorite musician: I have trouble with questions that involve ranking anything, so I’ll just say that right now I’m listening to a lot of old White Zombie. I didn’t know anything about their origins as an East Village noise band, and I’m fascinated by the stories about how apocalyptically miserable it was to be in that group. I’m increasingly obsessed with people who work their asses off doing something they barely even enjoy, for what must be borderline spiritual reasons.

Song stuck in my head: Nothing right this second, for which I am very grateful. There’s something awful in my brain that causes me to wake up with some maddening, babyish tune stuck in my head more often than not. It is most frequently the Ten Little Indians nursery rhyme. This is literally killing me.

Other blogs: @anhed-nia, which started as a dumping ground for long posts about mental illness, and turned into almost only movie writing. at some point there was just so much movie shit that i started to feel awkward about posting anything personal there again. i also got @getoffyrass which is a group blog, and a repository for images that make great drawing references. everyone is encouraged to post their drawings, too, although it is seldom used. i still like having it around, for when i have time to draw. my “real” drawing blog is @neveratendermoment but i don’t draw often enough anymore...

Do I get asks: i used to get tons! i really enjoy them, even the trolls to some degree. i must have seemed like more of a regular tumblr geek girl back in the day. also tumblr has just changed a lot since then. my blog was definitely a casualty of Best Stuff First, i think my follower count stopped dead forever right when that happened, and now that practically every single fucking thing on this entire site is either fandom shit or *discourse*, i really have nothing to offer tumblr anymore, anyway.

Blogs following: 1,057. 

Lucky numbers: 2! Also 5.

What I’m wearing: black wool long john pants from Chrome, and a white v neck teeshirt with the words BLACK MAYONNAISE on it in black Rocky Horror font. i live near the notoriously toxic Gowanus Canal, and “black mayonnaise” is the actual term used to describe what’s on the bottom of it, by the scientists who are trying to figure out what to do with it.

Dream trip: i am really excited by travel, it’s hard to pick. i’m hopefully making a dream trip soon though: my father’s mysterious finno-swedish family is from the åland islands, and my husband and i will be planning part of our honeymoon there, whenever that happens.

Dream Job: i think about this a lot, because the older i get, the more i object to the entire concept of having to work to live. i’m into the whole universal basic income thing. i’m at this point where i can barely stand to think about capitalism in any way--like i think about how the need for money is so mortally serious that there’s a lot of physical stuff in the world that only exists because someone was scared of starving, tons of useless products and packaging and factory byproducts and all kinds of fucking straight up garbage that was only invented due to the lethality of poorness. i would rather be left totally alone forever if possible. however, if i HAD to do something and i COULD do anything, it would probably be film criticism. this fantasy takes place in a world where people care so much about what i have to say that i can make a career, not only out of movie writing, but out of only writing about the specific movies i want to write about, referring to nothing other than my personal reactions.

Favorite food: i wish the answer weren’t just “cheese”, but it probably is. also mushrooms. anything cinnamon. i’m a pretty adventurous eater though. the most important thing for me is a variety of flavors and textures.

Languages: english. i took several years of italian in junior high-high school, and did nothing with it. i taught myself to read french pretty fluently, but i would fold right up if someone tried to speak to me. i learned a bunch of swedish on duolingo, shoulda kept it up. i’ll get back to it! i really regret never learning spanish though, so i’m easily torn on what to do with my time.

Play any instruments: clarinet in junior high/high school, also alto sax which i did not enjoy at all, a little guitar. i bought a used electric bass last year that i have really been enjoying, but i feel a lot of guilt around not playing enough. so much of it is just strength training. that’s probably what i like about it, though. also i got a lot of electronic music software and midi controllers and stuff...and then i realized that it could take me months to sort through the thousands of samples i have to program this stuff, and i only got so far into it before i started to get discouraged. i need to get back to it, it’s ridiculous to let that stuff lie around. this is a rare example of me wishing i knew someone local to play with, who could speed me along on how everything works.

Favorite songs: another one of these impossible questions! anybody who is even reading this can probably guess the answers from the handful of music posts i reblog over and over and over. the other night i got all hyperactive and forced my husband to drop everything and listen to “buffalo stance” by nene cherry, which i never ever get sick of. real top contenders for favorite song might be “Stand By the Jamms” by the klf, and this recording, which has gotten me through many difficult hours:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8k1HsF3EvY

https://www.forcedexposure.com/Catalog/sunray-sonic-boom-music-for-the-dreamachine-cd/STRAWB.003CD.html

Random fact: i’m sure i’m missing out on something really funny and cool, but for now it’s just the well-known fact that i read palms.

Describe yourself as aesthetic thing: man, how do i answer this without being totally pretentious? maybe nobody can! i’m coming up with something really hard to describe but it will be worth it. the other day i watched this insane, completely unnecessary movie about lorca and salvador dali (played by robert pattinson) as gay lovers. there’s a scene in it where lorca does that “pick a hand” thing to dali, and dali picks an empty hand. of course, they’re both poor students who couldn’t be buying any gifts, so they do this obnoxious pantomime where dali pretends lorca actually gave him something--but then it turns out that lorca really DOES have something. he opens his other hand and gives dali...SOMETHING. i don’t know what! they make such a big deal out of it, but what the hell? you see it for a second in this closeup, but it’s shot from like, behind and slightly underneath, and it is just unrecognizable. it’s sort of an orange blob? it’s probably meant to be a sculpture. but, i love the idea of doing the “pick a hand” thing to somebody, and the other person is just like...hey wait a minute, what the fuck even IS this?? 

it reminded me of one of the most amazing things anyone ever did at my school, bard college. this genius art student who I WISH I COULD NAME TO CREDIT HER did her senior project as this like...made up product. i saw them at the senior show, hanging off a spinner rack, like you’d see next to the register in the drug store. they were called Toilet Buddies. they were these plastic, brightly colored objects that looked like toys, but they didn’t have a familiar earthly shape, and because of the title, it was IMPOSSIBLE to imagine what to do with them. so, she gets the lipstick cam from the film department, and shoots this video of herself sneaking some Toilet Buddies into Walmart. then she takes them to the register and BUYS THEM--the baffled cashier looks for them for a while, and eventually just rings them up as a general grocery or something. then in part 2, the artist TAKES THEM BACK TO THE STORE WITH THE RECEIPT AND GETS A REFUND.

so anyway, i see myself as like a fake product--something that looks just familiar enough to exit, and that appears to have a designated purpose, but it’s just kind of cheap and foreign and it becomes nightmarish to try to imagine what to do with it. 

I don’t know if anyone i know will want to do this, but i tag @negativepleasure @moviesludge @former-contender @dimestoreman @thefuzzydave @darkarfs @theoddsideofme @blueruins ...um, i don’t really know who would enjoy this. the ultimate would be @garbagenacht

#long post

[soft-pink-wilfy]

You know, as much as I would love folks to reblog my commission post, I've kinda resigned myself to the "it is what it is" thing. I did the Blaze thing, and it didn't gain much traction but it gained more than it did before. I even had a few people praise me for having the cajones to be confident enough to Blaze my own commsheet.

Who knows? Maybe someday I might get somewhere with it. but until then, I just need to take things as they come.

I do want to apologize for the way I tend to act when I get heavily discouraged though. I promise, I'm working on the anger/depression coupling issue and trying to not judge my own value based on the luck of how many people happen to notice the work I put out.

(Warning: salt about jerk anons under the cut)

That being said, I do have something to say to the people who like to try and phrase flat-out hate and flaming as "constructive criticism" when someone is clearly having a full mental breakdown. Neither the breakdown nor the person's mental state excuse the person's behavior in said breakdown (I'm willing to admit I get fucking belligerent at times, and I definitely did about the lack of traction on that post), but the solution to it isn't to pointedly try and make them feel worse. And telling someone things like "Nobody wants to commission you because your shit isn't fucking worth what you're charging for it. It's always people with YOUR skill level who have such bad attitudes" just kinda makes you look like a dick. Take your pretentious, misplaced fine arts school nonsense out of my inbox and realize that people like you are killing the illustration field as a whole with your toxic methods of "critique." IDFK if the person who actually sent me that anon is going to see this post, but if they do I have one thing to say to them: I hope you're ashamed of yourself. You're the reason why people are afraid to actually put themselves out there. Go reevaluate your life choices and figure out why you think flaming people like that is EVER okay. Maybe go to therapy about it, because you're obviously dealing with some shit you need to get resolved somehow. Nobody handling things in their life any semblance of well is going to act like that. Do better. Be better. I know you have it in you.

Oh, and for the record... My shadows are "inconsistent" because I use different light sources, and because light falls oddly and usually doesn't settle in perfect ways. I actually use references for how shadows should fall. Once again, don't be pretentious.

#personal post #please don't reblog this

[old-long-john]

hey! i’m new to black sails fandom and i love all the amazing fanfic and yours especially! i would like to post some too but i’m afraid because you are all so good and so young. sometimes i want to give up writing because there are 19 yr olds among you who already write much better than i ever could. i don’t know what to do about this fear, do you have tips?

Hi! Welcome to the fandom! I totally know what you mean. It took me a long while to work up the courage to share fic in this fandom. Aside from one other fic inspired entirely by rage at what a different series chose to do, it was the first time I’d shared any writing in about 10 years. And I think that, even though the fandom is now a lot bigger and a little more anonymous than it was when I joined, it’s still an amazing place to share your writing. I’ve never had a mean comment, and I know they aren’t common in this fandom at all. People are supportive and enthusiastic and, while I know I’m lucky in that people recognise my ao3 name now, I think plenty of that support and enthusiasm extends to everyone who shares their writing. The comments to kudos ratio here is still pretty great compared to other fandoms. So as far as communities to share with go, this is still a fantastic one. 

The only way to know what you’re capable of is to keep writing. You never know, you could be brilliant already! And no matter how good you are, your words or ideas are bound to connect with someone. One of my favourite things about sharing writing is seeing which bits resonate with different people. It’s very difficult to fairly judge your own writing. I’ll have sentences or phrases that I feel really proud of that nobody picks up on, and things I add in right before I hit post that get quoted back at me. That’s the fun of sharing for me. I write for myself, but I share for those connections.

I don’t know how old you are, but as someone who’s almost 30 (like, really, really almost) I’d say don’t let the 19 year olds intimidate you. There really are some amazing young writers here, but a lot of us are older too (I know I still count as young, but there are plenty of people here who are much older than me!) and you wouldn’t be the only person here who first started sharing writing way past their teenage years. Plus, with genuinely no offence intended to the youngest writers, with age comes experience and wisdom. It’s likely you’ll have some amazing insights into the characters and dynamics borne of your own life experiences and introspection that you’d never have had at 19. Slick words aren’t everything. If they’re hollow and they don’t ring true then they won’t resonate with people. Believe in your own advantage there! I’m sure you have things to say that are worth hearing.

I’d also say, even though it’s rough, try not to be too discouraged if you don’t get the amount of feedback you’d hoped for, especially at first. It’s a horrible feeling when you pour your heart and soul into something and it feels like people don’t notice it, but sometimes that’s just the way it goes. Don’t be afraid to pimp out your own work. Reblog it as many times as you dare. Figure out the best times to put it out there (I’m sure there’s posts about with exact times it’s best to reblog stuff for visibility). Make moodboards or art or playlists or whatever else to go with it, if that’s your thing, and reblog those too. But after that, just keep writing. Maybe the next fic will be the one that really sticks the landing. I wish you all the best with it!

#thank you for messaging! #I really hope you feel brave enough to share your writing with us #feel free to send me a link or a message if you do! #anonymously or privately or not #I'm happy to pimp your stuff out too #:) #Anonymous

[salytierra]

On fandom: free content and entitlement

In light of recent events (read: that kid that took on a personal vendetta against the aph hub) I started thinking a lot about how the coddled tumblr mentality is killing all the current fandoms in general more than the emergency of new shows to fawn over does. 

Let me explain. But first I’d like to link some of my favorite posts:

(1) About the hyper-sensitivity and censorship on this site. 

(2) About minors invading adult places on the Internet. 

(3) About passive consumption of fanworks 

(4) My own rant about self-diagnosed mental issues

Let’s make one thing clear first: I was a smartass, whiny teen once too, completely unaware of how ridiculous I was being. Remembering myself at 16 - I want to crawl under a rock, let alone at 14! 

In 10 years time I will probably be embarrassed of how I am now, at 24, too.  

So this is not meant to pick on kids. That would be hypocritical and useless. This is about how this website glorifies a particular aspect of a dependent and self-centered state of mind, and how coddling and not-addressing it (links 1&2) affects the creation and consumption of fanworks. 

The key is to understand two basic truths:

A) EVERYTHING HAS A PRICE B) THE WORLD IS NOT TAILORED TO YOU

A) This is simple: the world works by equivalent exchange - you receive a service when you pay money for it or give something of equivalent value in return. And you have to receive money or goods in return for your work. 

(in fandom - these goods are feedback, but we will get to that later)

Now, that is something you learn when you grow up. When you are a kid in your parent’s house, they and the rest of the family do everything for you. You live, eat, receive medical attention and education for free. The only thing you are asked in return is to study and do some house chores from time to time. 

Of course not always it’s perfect, and some kids are put under a lot of pressure to do these two things right, but honestly? - It’s appalling how many posts complaining about setting the table I’ve seen around here. Children are more spoiled and consented now than they’ve ever been. And being as coddled as they are, when they grow up they don’t understand that, unlike their parents, the world doesn’t exist to make their life easy and that they can’t expect to receive perfect services without giving anything in return. 

Strangers on the internet just don’t love and care about you enough to do that. 

Nobody is going to sacrifice themselves specifically for you without receiving anything in return. 

B) So whenever you see and receive free services; such as a group of fans running a page to help out other fans, dedicating hours and hours of stressful work to it; or an artist that draws your favorite character, or a writer that just wrote that particular AU that you always wanted... you CAN NOT EXPECT IT TO BE PERFECT. Specially perfect FOR YOU, in PARTICULAR. 

You want something to be done perfectly according to your tastes? - Do it YOURSELF. 

And see for yourself how hard it is. Get off your ass and force yourself to work for free, for yourself and others, and then try not to care when you start receiving callout posts and anons complaining about how something that you did, doesn’t sit right with them. 

I already spoke out about this once, but basically, as a free individual: You can make constructive criticism, you can complain if you’ve been wronged and ask for a reasonable explanation, but you can’t demand changes. You can’t expect others to take your words into consideration just because it’s you. 

And if you don’t treat people with the respect that they are due, you will only wrong yourself. 

Why?

Because there’s nothing as discouraging as working your ass off just for the sake of doing a service to others and receive callouts, demands and bullying in return. 

It’s almost as bad, or even worse, as the silence. 

Silence:

And here’s the other point: if you consume free media or services, the least you can do, is show appreciation. 

We live in an age when kids seldom thank their parents for making them food or buying their clothes. And if they do, it’s rarely sincere. There’s a collective sense of laziness towards showing gratitude. Everything is a given, as if these commodities just appeared out of thin air. 

Well, hours, sometimes even days, of people’s work is not a given. As a quote in Link 3 goes: 

“We create for ourselves, but we post it for you”

There’s nothing more discouraging for a writer than feeling like they are shouting into the void - except, of course, outright non-constructive criticism. 

There’s nothing worse for an artist (again, except said criticism) than when their work is faced with indifference. And that also applies to half-assed acknowledgement. A freind of mine once said “when people like but not reblog my art, I feel like they are telling me it’s not good enough to be shown in public.”

It’s very simple to leave a review or a singe word of praise when reblogging someone’s work. Just give it a try and you’ll light up their world. 

And if you feel like it’s some soft of effort on your part, think about the effort they put into making it for you. 

If you don’t appreciate the effort of others... people will just stop making that effort. Stop drawing your fanart and stop writing your stories.

And finally: all these community blogs that work their ass off to help artists and writers, to help keep the fandom active and provide information and promotion services: it’s hard work too. They deal with a lot of people and a lot of stupid issues every day. 

The least we can do is, from time to time, show some appreciation and understand that they are human, they make mistakes the same way that you do. So if they make mistakes, don’t whine and insult them like a spoiled brat, get off your ass and help out or have at least some respect and accept that not everything is ever going to be to your taste.

TL;DR: if you consume free content

a) Don’t make demands: you are entitled to nothing except what other’s are willing to give you. 

b) Accept that not everything is going to be perfectly tailored to your tastes.

c) Show some appreciation in return!

That’s your part of the exchange.

#saltytierra #tumblr issues #hetaliafandomhub #hetalia fandom #hetalia #applicable to all fandoms actually

[spoofenshmirtz]

why do people care so much about what other people ship (readmored because i accidentally started rambling)

i just saw a post that was basically like “this really inconspicuous and nice artwork that’s been spread around, that at first glance isn’t shippy at all, was actually tagged with this problematic ship and y’all should maybe not reblog it” like i’m paraphrasing but that was literally the point of the post. to discourage from reblogging a really nice artwork just because op tagged it with a problematic ship, although it’s not obvious at first glance.

like you don’t know the whole story!! maybe the artist is an avid shipper of the two. maybe they’re not really a shipper but use the tag for posts with the two characters anyway. like back when oso-san s1 was ongoing and i was super into it, a lot of people were complaining that they “couldn’t check combined character tags [as in, tags that are fucking japanese ship names because that’s how you name ships in japanese, by combining the characters’ names] because they were full of shipping.” like apparently this is some sort of custom, although i can’t for the life of me understand why people would expect ship tags to contain non-shipping art, but apparently some people missed that memo and think it accounts for every post ever that just depicts the two characters together in the same picture.

anyway what was my point. i think it’s that “calling out” posts like this, especially as vaguely as that post did (as it didn’t mention artist or link to the post or anything, it just kinda vaguely described what the drawing depicted in tbh rather broad terms), is just really fucking unnecessary. why do you care how the op tagged it?? clearly the “””meaning””” of the artwork was lost in the reblogs since it got so popular. and even if the artist meant it to be shippy, who cares???? literally who cares!! an avid shipper will interpret literally any interaction between two characters as shippy. does that mean everyone should just block this artist so they can’t reblog their art and tag it as a problematic ship? that’s like..... almost bullying, like i cannot fathom why people have to care so much about this kind of shit that they start excluding others who are just trying to have fun and live their lives based on this really superficial criterion.

this is exactly why i’m not even active in fandoms anymore. because, yes, you guessed it, i do enjoy problematic ships! i enjoy a lot of problematic ships! but i enjoy them in silence because i expect everyone to basically execute me on the spot if i ever speak up about these sorts of things. and i’d really rather not be “””exposed””” as some sort of “””nasty””” in case i ever do try to get more into art, and try to create more of an online presence for myself. because i’d rather not have people hate on my followers just because i’m problematic, because i’ve shipped these problematic fictional ships that don’t really affect anyone else’s lives in any way at all.

every day i thank the lords that fandoms weren’t like this back when i was super into kh, because as i’ve learned in older years, apparently akuroku is problematic and people who ship it should burn in hell or something. although because i’m aware of this damned discourse now, i’ve had this feeling for months that i really wanna draw some goddamned akuroku, for good old times’ sake, to convince my little 12yo self that no, there’s nothing wrong with you for shipping these two characters of ambiguous age with an ambiguous age difference and a power imbalance of questionable existence with its only basis in how axel, well, existed before roxas. like ok i get that axel is ambiguously aged, and that lea was definitely like 10 years older than sora around bbs, but y’know, we don’t know when lea became axel? and we don’t know if nobodies age, like, at all? so it’s perfectly within the realms of possibility that, y’know, lea became axel around the age of 17 and has been stuck in that age since then. which would make the maximum age difference between axel and roxas, like, 2 years. and even if he was up to 19, that’s still only a 4 year age difference, and okay i’ll just shut up now. this is discourse for another time.

anyway my actual point is that people should just. stop caring so fucking much about what other people ship. if it makes you uncomfortable, blacklist it! if people shipping it make you uncomfortable, don’t interact with them! but keep it to your own damned self, because you’re in no position to tell other people how they should enjoy a franchise you like. if others agree with you, they’ll blacklist and block, too. but they should get to do it out of their own goddamned will, not because others have hammered in the idea that merely considering this ship is bad and means you’re a bad person. spoiler: it doesn’t.

#spoovy's thoughts

[regrettablewritings]

So . . . I need to say some stuff

As anyone who knows me or has held certain kinds of conversations with me could tell you that I am the absolute worst at confrontation. Even if it’s in regards to something more positive. However, as this post is about something rather negative, it will be harder for me to express exactly what I mean without feeling like I’m coming off as an ungrateful or bitchy. However, as this is an apparent concern for many content creators on this site, I don’t think it’s fair to assume I am.

Please allow me to word-vomit an explanation:

Communication aka I’m a Talking Human Being:

Before I started this blog, I had a tendency to send headcanons and AUs to other blogs through anon. In fact, I still do this quite often, and usually to great effect both on the blog-runner’s part and their followers. One day, I got brave enough to submit a soulmate AU drabble set to a Tumblr user who is no longer on this site and a few people asked for more so, after speaking with said Tumblr user, I was encouraged to start Regrettablewritings. Now in my bio, I refer to this place as a “dumping ground” for my pieces. That isn’t just there out of self-deprecation: This was literally just meant to be a place where I put my stuff. All the ideas I had, the headcanons, the one-shots, etc. I never once indicated that this was a place that took requests.

But I should’ve known it’d happen and for that I will take responsibility for not suggesting otherwise. I was never truly set on the idea of doing requests at all because I’ve seen the stuff that people send in by the droves and there was no way I would be able to keep up or provide what was desired and at top quality. However, I feared that completely avoiding or turning down the ones that inevitably came in would result in issues. Blame my paranoia.

I’m still not entirely sure as to what to do with the requests I get. Some, I will admit, I do fulfill. But for the most part, I don’t always feel up to it. Especially considering that I have, by no exaggeration, nearly 20 ideas already stockpiled. Of these pieces, some have been in the works since I started this blog and I’m always trying to figure out which ones to focus on the most so I go, “Hey, I got this, this, and that. Which ones do you wanna see?” And you know what I always get? Nothing. Nobody says what they want from the list. So I sigh, delete the post after having it up for a week, and do whatever I can when the motivation hits me.

Not long after, however, I start getting entirely different requests. Always. I know it’s not intended, but the idea I can’t help but get is that my original content isn’t exactly what anyone is looking for no matter how much work I’m determined to put into it.

I reblog ask memes because maybe if I prove that I’m human behind the screen or showcase that “witty personality” my real life friends keep talking about, maybe it’ll prove that I’m approachable. If I’m lucky one person will message me and I have to stop myself from begging them to please ask more, lest I look desperate.

So then I figured if I reached out to the nearly 400 followers I currently have and tried to connect with them, then maybe there’d be more luck in the realm of communication. But when I tried Sleepover Saturday, only two people “showed up.” And they weren’t even the people who liked the post where I asked if anyone would do it, or the people who told me to go on ahead and do it. So that was the end of that.

For months, I’ve debating bringing up this issue. I didn’t want to look like a snooty bitch, but I also wanted to express how I felt about the situation. I may write to express myself, but I also write and in the way I do to entertain. In real life, I am very cynical and bitter and a bit of a crybaby with a bottled up temper. But the truth of the matter is, I love making people laugh and feel better. The world is already so full of shit; I just want to put a little goodness into somebody else’s day, even if it’s a weirdass fic about everyone’s favorite Cuban lawyer having a past as an adult dancer or whatever. So when it feels like I’m only needed when you want something, and then shelved until then, it doesn’t make me feel good. It makes me feel like the ideas I want to give you aren’t good enough. I know the notes may suggest otherwise, but we’re gonna put a pin in that for a quick second.

The feeling of discouragement often effects my willingness to write. I’ll still do it because, in truth, writing is one of the only things I can do reasonably well. But what’s the point in doing something well if you feel like you’re being taken for granted for it?

I ask you guys for your opinions and feelings on things because I genuinely need to know. I function by playing around with options. Any friend of mine, in real life or online, will tell you that if I’m working on a project (be it painting, fanfiction, or essay), I will throw my ideas out there or ask you for your thoughts on the matter. For fuck’s sake, I’ve heckled @xemopeachx and @ohbelieveyoume about cologne suggestions for one sentence in a piece I’ve been working on! That is how thorough I tend to be about the weirdest shit. But I also do it because I feel you guys deserve that kind of effort. I need a lot of things explained to me in depth to know how they work, so I make it an effort to use that as a means to help others see exactly what I do. I’m already hard to comprehend in real life. Please don’t let me think this effort is for nothing.

Summary: I work hard to give content but never hear anything back in terms of what you would like to see next. But when this happens, it’s like I’m posting from the void and nobody can see it. However, suddenly people are willing to fall into the void if only to make a request. I try to reach out and be more friendly, but even those are disregarded. I don’t know what to do.

Notes: Regarding Likes, Reblogs, and Messaging:

This is something that a lot of content creators talk about. If you’ve seen a post about always reblogging art, chances are you’ve seen a comment saying something like, “Same goes for fanfic writers.” This isn’t riding on coattails or anything, this is some real mess. And, on top of that, there’s an extended difference between art feedback and writing feedback. Because with artists, exposure for them can lead to commissions. Writers? We do this for free. However, this doesn’t make feedback any less deserving.

I’m not trying to complain here, but nobody writes 7-21 pages worth of content to get 100+ notes where only about 12 of them are reblogs. Now I, as well as many others, will give leeway: There is a definite stigma against people who read fanfiction and they may not want it on their blog. I get that. A lot of writers do. But when the reblog to total note ratio is 12/115, 14/192, and 13/207, things get . . . disheartening.

Because guys? Writing is HARD. I know you may see this statement all the time, but that's only because it's true: You have to remember all these words so you don't sound repetitive, you have to paint a clear enough picture without sound prose-y, you have to somehow translate exactly what the image in your head is and pray you don't lose people along the way, you have to SOMEHOW get from Point A to Point C when Point B is either exceedingly blurry or even nonexistent. And, perhaps the hardest of all, YOU HAVE TO BE MOTIVATED! It takes so much energy and focus just to write one page, especially if you have a hectic life going on beyond the screen. And guess what? A lot of, if not, all writers do!

For example: For the first two and a half months of running this blog, I wrote on my phone for most of the time because I didn't have a laptop and the only times I could use the computer lab in my dorm was when others were done with their work. (To gain a better idea of how vexing this can be, please note that A Practice in Happy Memories was written on my phone and that bitch is 6 pages in Word. Try doing that and see how tired of it you get.) And I’m one of the lucky ones: You’ve got people going through some rough stuff in their lives, people raising families while holding down a job, coming on this hell site to write and share their thoughts and ideas. I’m just some 22 year-old black chick with seasonal depression and increasingly crippling social anxiety and an aggressively negative view of the world!

Forgive me for sounding cocky, but I would like to think I deserve better than, like, 8 reblogs on a 60-noted something I literally tapped to life in-between homework and depression naps. Really, though, every writer who’s had to do this deserves better. The amount of talented writers who bust out quality content in spite of broken technology or, you know, having a life outside of the computer yet don’t get treated with utmost appreciation is unreal.

I’m not trying to shame people here, but if you can’t reblog, then reply. Or send a message. Even if it’s on anonymous. Trust me: You message a writer saying you love their crap, you will make their day and they will treasure that thing and look back on it when they feel like crap. For those of you that do reblog, please tag it. It literally only takes a few seconds. As @locke-writes put it in his own post about similar issues, writers really want/need to know what you thought. A like is equivalent to a quick nod and distant pat on the back. A reblog without a tag is a bit better, but still doesn’t get across exactly how you felt, what we did right, etc. A reblog with comments, even in the tags? Makes our fucking day!

Likes? They’re literally just the person who walks by your free sample booth, takes the sample, and doesn’t even acknowledge your existence.

I know I should feel grateful that I have as many notes as I do at all. However, a ridiculous amount tend to come from people who 1) don’t even follow me, and 2) they’re just likes. I have nearly 400 followers already and the same small handful only ever add into the notes. And even fewer actually comment or anything.

This is a common issue for a lot of writers: We just want to be seen as more than just story-making machines. We desire validation for the time and acknowledgement for the effort we put into something we feel we’re skilled at. But a lot of people may feel uncomfortable talking about it in fear of seeming ungrateful or anything but this feeling just drives them closer to wanting to quit writing altogether.

I’m not quitting Tumblr. At least, not anytime soon. But I still need you guys to know this because it’s been boiling up inside me and it’s driving me nuts. Anyway, I’m sorry if I came off as bitchy here as that wasn’t my intention. My intention was to give you a look into some part of the mind that a lot of writers have. Thanks for letting me get this off my chest.

Summary: Reblogs > Likes. Reblogs with comments and tags ∞ > Likes. And if you can’t reblog, reply or send a message. Your content creator worked to make that piece come to fruition and they deserve to know how they did. They’re not being paid for it despite the amount of time and energy they gave for it, so payment in the form of feedback is the least that they could be given.

In short: Appreciate your fanfic writers. Let them know what you think because every little compliment sticks with them.

#long post #rant #appreciate your writers #fanfic writer problems #i just needed to say this #word vomit

[yuseirra]

i know oumasai is popular, but make sure to draw what YOU want to draw cx i made the mistake of drawing for others without drawing what i wanted to draw, just for notes, and i lost all inspiration and love for drawing for a long time 3 i absolutely love your art yuu

Waa anon you’re kind ;v; thank you very much.. I really, with all my heart, try to convince myself notes aren’t everything and I’m really really happy with all the notes I get even if I means I only get one!! And I want to keep drawing the things I love >///feel posts like likes and reblogs encourage people who make content because that’s a fact ‘v’; but posts like “reblog posts instead of like!” kinda bothers me sometimes because that just depends on people’s free will.. people can have the things they’d like to on their blog and likes are just as lovely as a reblog it does show they liked your things it’s waaay way supportive than just nothing)

At the same time, what I feel a bit bitter about is that sometimes I feel as if, I would be able to share things a lot better if I were to be a more skilled artist..I see really cool artists who post stuff and it explodes in a sec and I wonder if there’d ever be a day I could be like that BUT, BUT, I am grateful to have people who’re encouraging me now!!! I’m never underappreciating any of you!!/// I’m so happy to have met a lot of sweethearts and angels who actually come by to tell me they liked my things or leave nice tags or just like a lot of my stuff it’s a blessed feeling. When I first started drawing I never knew I’d find people who’d like my creations really!!// It’s incredible to have lovely people like you who tell me you do!! That’s one of the reasons I want to make better things and improve.

You see, the other day I saw someone say “Some people just post their random doodles and get more notes than I do while I spend hours and hours on my things I feel so discouraged” and maybe it’s a wrong hunch but I felt it meant me;; hh I do have my reasons of thinking why..

I was a bit upset at first, because honestly I spend hours on drawing too, they’re not the only one who’s trying, but I didn’t say anything to them because maybe they had a point in a way. My drawings don’t look like I put a lot of effort into it although I have been working pretty hard.. the thing I’ve been focusing on mainly lately is improving my drawing speed because I have a lot of ideas and I just can’t draw them all out unless I reduce my time on making each art but.. when you just look at my single piece it might look as if I’m having it easy ._.; I really hope doing this might help me out in the long run; idk maybe I should practice coloring and stuff too Hopefully i improve really fast and make things that look more complete than I do now too! >v tysm for the encouragement, I’ll keep drawing.. and ah, I would like to see your drawings as well sometime ;v;/

#asknreply #sweet anon #encouraging words #Anonymous

[monster-teeth]

So for my senior year I took AP studio art.  Kind of.  I took it for a month or so but quickly realized it wasn’t really what I wanted, so they kept me in the classroom but I took a class that’s requirements my teacher and I made up together.  But the school year before I was pretty set on taking AP art, partly because I had taken every other art class available and also because I really like the idea of being in some kind of elite class I guess(don’t judge me im desperate to feel good about myself lol)

But the school year before, because I was so set on it(and I was actually going to take it that school year but I decided it just didn’t fit in my schedule) I looked at the little pamphlet that you get about it and I was like okay what do I have to do to qualify for this or whatever.  And the pamphlet told me that I needed teacher approval and it either said I needed to show a portfolio or i assumed it did, and I’m pretty damn sure it was the former.  So I threw together what little finished looking art I had, which I quickly realized was not a lot, and stuff on my phone that was digital art.  I put it something nice looking and I put the art on my phone in a folder so I wouldn’t be spending a lot of time scrolling through picture for it.  So I had my art teacher look at it towards gaining approval to get into the class right.  So my art teacher was looking through it all, and probably about halfway through he told me that I didn’t actually need to show him this stuff, nobody has to like go through The Format or anything, if you want to get in you just can. Which Nobody Told Me.  the critique goes on, he flips through it all and then he asks me something along the lines of “do these look finished to you?”  and i’m like “yeah, I guess.”  and we talk about that for awhile and we basically get to the idea that really I need to add more stuff to the backgrounds or even have a background at all or add more detail and i tell him how i love detail but I always worry that if I put too much detail it’ll become too much and he kind of talks me out of that by showing me some famous artists with really lots of detail in their work

but somewhere in that conversation over the stuff i was showing him, he told me that my art “looks like your average high school fantasy art”

and just later in the day and the next couple days like

that made me really upset man

Because i really enjoyed what i was drawing at that time and the simpleness of that and I felt like I was getting closer to something repeatable and enjoyable

and all of sudden somebody tells you that’s bad

like he said it in a “that’s kind of bad, you should move away from that, move above that” kind of way

and after those couple of weeks I kind of forgot about it, but in the recent weeks I was just really looking at some of the cheaply framed art of mine on the walls, some of which was in that portfolio

and like im thinking, I was so happy and having so much fun when I was making those, when did i stop drawing cool looking but kind of generic fantasy characters and then i was like Oh.

And don’t get me wrong, I love the stuff I’m doing now, I think my character design and overall art skills have gotten a lot better since taking “AP art”(cause it technically wasn’t actually AP for me), but I kind of miss just having fun rather than worrying about Oh my god is this original enough, does it have enough detail, is there a background, how about complex lighting.

Like I had been doing a 30 days of monsters challenge or something when I made those

AND I WAS SUPER STRESSED though, cause like I felt like there was no way for me to make a piece every day and i also didn’t have enough water colour paper for it lol, but also because I knew there was absolutely no one to care if I didn’t finish it.  Which is really discouraging.  It’s both freeing to know that Literally No One Cares, but also super depressing to know that Literally No One Cares cause then like what is the point?

Like even if I enjoyed painting something and I really like it and then I post it and it doesn’t even get a -single- note, like I’m not kidding most of my art gets zero notes except for me reblogging it in hopes of somebody seeing it, then it kind of feels like making it was for nothing.  Especially since most of the time the art of mine that people do seem to like, usually in person, is art that I don’t really like, and then they don’t like the art that I think was actually really really good.

It’s annoying I guess.

But they also all had this cool funkiness to them that I kind of miss, and I don’t seem to anymore.  Like one of them has this big weird shape behind it that has super thick black lines on it.  I like that a lot.  But at the same time I guess I’m also trying to be sophisticated.  I guess.. I guess I’m trying to be an adult and have Adult art  !Not like sexual stuff!  but like stuff that seems more immaculate I guess. But then at the same time I’m trying to find a colouring style that’s repeatable and easy enough to make comics with, or work quickly with.

I.  I feel so slow.  I feel like I am So Slow.  Like everyone around me can make finished looking art in one day, and it takes me three days if im working on it constantly and I actually finish it and im not having like a Really Good Art Day.  And it just kind of beats all the want to make art of me when everything looks bad and everything takes to long to make finished.

And I both want to draw fanart and also know that fanart is honestly the only way i can ever get noticed on any website or thing ever. But I also feel like I such at drawing fanart.  I should draw fanart. A ton.  And just like not care how it looks or something I guess.  But at the same time if all anybody follows me for is fanart and then I just start drawing my regular stuff i know people will like get mad??? and like then it feels like i’ve tricked them into following me

but also I never draw consistently.  Like I don’t post art for months at a time.  I used to post more on my instagram but then my phone got fucked up and I can’t do that again until I have a new phone. BUT ALSO the stuff i posted on my instagram was traditional sketches and stuff because that’s what I would do inbetween classes and now that I don’t have class anymore i don’t really do a lot of traditional art.  Anything I do these days is digital.  But I spend wayy more time scrolling tumblr than I do making anything these days.  Hopefully I’ll be working on some doll customs soon but I can’t start on that until I order stuff and I can’t order stuff yet cause I have to do it through my mom because I still don’t have a bank account because we didn’t get me one before I turned 18 so now I can’t do anything really?  I can’t take commissions because I don’t have a bank account to link to my paypal, I can’t sell anything on etsy because 1. mail system and shipping in general is scary aND 1. PAYPAL with bank account thing again.  I can’t get paid from my online job until I have a bank account for them to put it in yet eitHER.

I just spend all day watching TV and scrolling tumblr in 80-100 degree weather everyday.

That’s all I do.

Everyday.

And I have pretty much zero friends.

I mean, it’s kind of what I expected out of life, but still.

Still horribly mentally ill and multiple fronts with no therapist.

Plants are still dying.

I’d go outside and do pok/em/on go but phone = broke so.

yeah, im trying to write stuff too, and ya know actually make some comics but art = hard so it doesn’t get very far.  Maybe make something with a friend?? but i don’t know if that’s gonna fall through or not cause like it would involve both art and writing and we all know how Slow i am at that stuff.

#yup #that was long #hope you enjoyed #just trying to get stuff out of my mind