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localcryptidsteg · 2 months

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Tracing, Style Theft, and the need to be Unique

A comment chain on Instagram got me thinking about these things earlier. Someone asked what common art advice is actually bad advice, and I left a short list that Ive heard, among which is "dont trace."

Naturally, this ruffled some feathers, but heres the deal: so long as you arent line-for-line copying the majority of someone elses work and passing it off as yours? Theres absolutely nothing wrong with tracing. Copying and tracing are two different things; think back to the old "how to draw" books. How they blocked out anatomy and taught you the relative distance of things with lines and joints. Tracing... is essentially doing the same thing. As a learning tool for personal use, being able to take a picture and draw the skeletal frame over it helps you with perpesctive and anatomy immensely! It even helps in stylization. Tracing develops the skills you need in order to replicate something, replication develops the skills you need in order to stylize.

Which brings us to our next issue.... style theft isnt a thing. It doesnt exist. Unless youre forging paintings and passing them off as the real deal, there is absolutely zero reason not to look at the techniques and stylization your favorite artists use and replicate that. Again, it helps you develop skills like shading and coloring and lineart. And having your own "style"? One that has to be completely different from anyone elses? Thats bullshit! Most artists dont just have ONE style. The best artists have several and go out of their way to continue learning more!

Think of it this way: we wouldnt have 2d animation if actual artists gave a flying fuck about their "style" being copied. The Renaissance artists would never have risen to prominence if their teachers hadnt sat them down and told to paint how they did. Bob Ross would never have had a tv show if mimicking how someone else creates mattered in any way at all.

The way you develop your own style is simply this: you look at your favorite artists, you analyze what elements of their work make your brain happy and what are enjoyable for you to do, you mash them all together and voila. Your very own (not really at all) "unique" style.

I think this frankly terrible and counterintuitive art advice trend is killing artists. When you go online as an artist and preach to a bunch of younger aspiring artists that invaluable tools for growth are inherently bad and wrong and theyre evil for using them, you do three things at once:

First, you make them fear creation. "I want to draw or sculpt or knit or what have you, but what if I accidentally copy someone? Then Id be a bad person!"

Second: you kill the joy of creation. They become too focused on the end result and never really learn how to make for the sake of making.

Third: you block their avenues of progress. In order to get better at your craft, you really do have to try everything. Trying to make certain techniques into something "off limits" only serves to hinder that progression. It causes stagnation which in turn causes frustration, which leads us back to issue 2.

When I was a kid, my grandma would drive two hours to my city every year for my birthday, and every year she would take me to the art museum. My grandma loved art with every fiber of her being. She was thrilled when my mom went to art school. She was estatic when my sibling and I took up drawing. But she never, EVER tried to make anything herself. See, when she was in school, her art teacher had told her she wasnt very good. And she, being a kid, believed it. And she stopped trying. She would never color with me and my sibling, would never try drawing with us when we begged her to join in. Shed chuckle and say "oh, I couldnt draw a straight line with a ruler!" And sit and watch us work and rave over how good we were at it instead.

When she hit about 80 or so, her memory started going. But she still loved the museum and she still loved art. One of my aunts talked her into taking one of those "how to paint" classes at a little studio near her house. She painted a cake. And you know what? It was a really friggin good painting! Itd be hanging in my room right now if my aunt hadnt called dibs!

My point is this: anyone of any skill level can learn to draw or paint or whatever. Im a major proponent of this; I always have been. But shaming creatives for how they do it, for how they learn it, for what they make? That destroys the drive to create, and it can last a lifetime. Who knows what my grandma could have made if not for that teacher? Who knows how many young artists felt nothing but shame and guilt over their work and quit because of bad-faith art advice?

#steg speaks #my art #artist advice #art advice

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psyce · 1 year

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coming from someone who is involved in the irl art and design industry. i really do not think ai art is as big of a deal as the internet is making it out to be. every argument including theft of work especially without consent still stands but in terms of ai “replacing” artists and putting them out of work. purpose and design thinking and informed creative choices are never going to be made by ai and this is why artists and designers are hired. if youre looking at it specifically from a twitter artist lens- illustrators who draw the same kind of character and have the same themes and ideas in their art- obviously that can easily be replicated by an ai. and im not saying that this kind of art “doesnt matter” but art that is visually similar and has no real purpose or themes other than look pretty can already be copied, and if theres no “point” to it (obviously there is— but in terms of the argument) then sure an ai can copy it. but when illustrators and designers are hired for specific jobs, making the art is only one step of a massive process that’s the reason we charge so much anyway— everything beyond what consumers just see as the end result. and ai cant generate that so work that isnt created by a human will never have the purpose, intent, and creative choices that human work does. this isnt saying that ai isnt going to find its way into the industry or become more common but i really dont think its as much of a dire threat worth panicking and protesting over that everyone is making it out to be. it can definitely be useful as a tool and isnt something thats just 100% bad

#i may have already said this. but i fee like people are blowing this out of proportion

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catboypawjob · 1 year

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anyone else get really fucking annoyed whenever some new art scandal happens and instead of people trying to hold the art thief or thieves accountable they always shift the discussion to some stupid fucking "but is it art?" debate. if someone is stealing a piece of art, photography, writing, or any other artistic medium and tracing it, recoloring it, mutilating it, running it through an ai model, or just plain stealing it, and passing it off as their own, then it truly doesnt fucking matter if the end result is ugly, beautiful, inspiring, or whether or not it constitutes as art in ur book. its theft. it also doesnt matter whether or not the thief is "a real artist" or not bc u could talk in circles for eons about what art is fundamentally and it wouldnt get u fucking any closer towards addressing the problem. in the same vein, someone making a definite statement that the thief is not an artist (or is) shouldnt be an invitation to discussion either, especially if the person saying so is the same person who just had their work stolen. tldr defining art and what makes an artist is not an appropriate discussion to be had here, it serves no purpose and does nothing to hold the thief accountable.

#seriously every time i see these types of comments i want 2 bang my head against a wall #like what the fuck do u think ur doing. what was the point of this

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selamat-linting · 1 year

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But it isn't doing anything for the beginning to have the bot do it, they didn't put in any of their own effort and learn anything. What does it help that beginner to just have someone else, in this case a bot, make it?

Another point. Why should AO3 have to host bot created works in their server space they pay for?

who gives a shit.

who can objectively measure that certain acts counts as effort or not? like, putting in some words to spit out an image might be easy to us, but there are still some people who find that difficult, or people who dont have the capability or time or even the resources to start making art with their hands but still wanted to participate in creating in the way they can. whats so wrong for choosing the easy, effortless way? arent we all about taking things easy and convenience here? you might think the tools count as a form of theft, but get this: fanfics are literally considered a form of IP theft under the law no matter how different they are from the original. if you want to be consistent, you have to consider the edge cases where an ai fic produces something that are a remix of other fics but still manage to be something one of a kind.

and not gonna lie, i think people making judgements about what actions are universally easy and effortless are ableist. and effort in "art" doesnt always equate enjoyment for the readers / viewers.

and ao3 is there for archival purposes even for things you disagree with. its their mission statement. theyre not here to make a political stance. i dont like it but its the policy they've written so they have to stick with it. i mean, they could try changing it to ban ai art, but to do so without being hypocritical and betraying their site's reason of existence, that would be impossible methinks.

also, imagine banning ai fics before banning rpf underage smut (child porn). i think if that happens, a lot of people would believe it to be a pretty damning evidence on what the "Fandom" community actually are so they actually have grounds to ban the site for that reason.

(also, bots? lol the accounts are made by real people. they just happen to use bots and control some part of the input)

#disc horse #btw im casting a universal KILL YOURSELF spell to anyone who ask me this again #my mutuals might be involved in discourse but Not Me #i've said my piece #Bye

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frankierose · 4 years

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ok quick before i actually go to bed

UR ALWAYS IMPROVING AS AN ARTIST I SWEAR ULL FIND URSELF EVENTUALLY. IT TOOK ME 2 YEARS TO GET TO WHERE I AM RIGHT NOW, AND I HAD TO GET RID OF ALL THE BRAINWASHING THAT THE ART COMMUNITY GAVE ME

style theft is not real!!! draw however you want, and dont feel guilty if your style is Forever Changing dont feel guilty if you heavily reference your art style on someone elses. bc u knoow what???? who gives a shit!!!!!! its UR art. experiment and try new things

DONT HAVE UR PRIORITY BE ‘i want this to be my job in the long run’!!!!!! that is a nice thought but it will RUIN your thinking!!! youll start to see art as a chore and it wont be fun anymore!!!! just draw cause you want to not cause you have to!!

DONT LET ANYONE, AND I MEAN ANYONE!!! tell you whats right or wrong drawing-wise ESPECIALLY if they are as inexperienced as you. its okay if your anatomy is not perfect. or if you have same face syndrome. you are LEARNING and you need to figure that stuff out in your own time. someone pointing out the obvious without any actual advice doesnt help.

DONT SELF DEPRECATE. INSULTING YOUR OWN ART (whether it be for pity points or because you actually feel that way about it) DOES NOT!!! DO ANYTHING FOR YOU!!! OR FOR ANYONE AROUND YOU!!!! take the compliments people give you!!! it is NOT selfish!! and even if you think you are the absolute worst artist in the world, someone likes your art. and thats what matters. and yknow you wouldnt say those things about someone else’s art right?

you dont have to ask for critique. you dont NEED critique honestly. most of the time it will just make u look down on your own art and that is Not Fun

just. take ur time as an artist. have fun with it. draw however you want and whatever you want. ily and youre doing amazing, okay? goodnight

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blackjacketmuses · 5 years

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hc; poe 3

Bibliography

Poe has written nine mystery novels between the ages of 13 and 22 --- they’re very popular and sell very well, usually near the top of the best-sellers list in the mystery genre, and he makes a good bit of money of the royalties.

The books star a detective named Benjamin Lapin, an amateur mystery writer just out of university with a fascination with the occult and a brilliant mind, able to see things a way most others can’t and pick up on things others dismiss. He’s friendly and cheerful and charming, a bit too eager to discuss his interests, and a bit unable to understand what’s not appropriate to talk about cheerily (ie gory murder details); but he can get serious when it comes time for the reveals, and he has a very strong sense of justice. He doesn’t have any assistants, but the main police officer he works with, the stiff and uptight but honorable Detective Pym, is a recurring character, as is the mysterious woman named Annalise.

The mysteries themselves are always incredibly well-written, tight, and very clever, with no room for any plot holes or errors. There’s always a last minute twist and a shocking reveal that seems out of nowhere, but when the mystery is explained, one can look back and see every single clue was there the whole time, and an attentive reader can catch and figure out the mystery perfectly well, even before Lapin himself. In his later books, starting with the third, he begins to incorporate mild supernatural elements that don’t detract or ruin the mystery, but add an layer of intrigue and something to think about once the book is over, whether or not it really was supernatural, as a rational explanation is given and it’s up to the reader to choose whether or not to believe.

The books are as follows:

The Black Theatre -- Rumors have begun to spread that a local theatre is cursed, given two people have died there mysteriously, so Lapin --- curious about this curse more than anything --- goes to visit, and a third death happens while he’s there. Drawn into the mystery at that point, especially when the detective on the case seems to think they’re just accidents, Lapin ends up uncovering an old scandal that had remained buried for a decade and reveals that the killer is the cleaning man, who had had an affair with a popular actress who was tormented for her fame and killed herself. The cleaning man kills himself on stage when caught out, to join her, but the mystery is solved and Lapin and Pym become friends.

The Town of Clocks -- Lapin is called out to an old college friend’s wedding, to a town in the middle of nowhere, and it seems the town is very odd, as there are clocks on nearly every surface available, all telling the same (incorrect) time. Apparently it’s tradition, and the friend has no idea where it began. The father of the groom, however, is murdered horrifically, and so the investigation begins. The clues as more people die begin to point towards Lapin’s friend, but in the end the twist comes in that it was his fiancee (whom he had not met until now) the whole time...or was it? She in turn reveals that she is not the fiancee, but someone else, and the real fiancee is, in fact, the killer --- seeking to reveal the grisly truth behind the clocks. After the chaos of the reveal, the false fiancee (a woman named Annalise) disappears with some important documents, fascinating Lapin, but the mystery is solved.

The Ninth Circle -- It’s winter, and Lapin heads up to a mansion-style vacation hotel in the mountains for some time to write. His trip coincides with a theatre troupe’s visit to the same hotel to practice their next play. They get snowed in, and murders start to happen during the blizzard. Whispers start circulating among the guests that it’s the doing of a local legend, an evil monster that lurks in the mountains to hunt prey, and at first it seems that’s the only option, given some of the inexplicable circumstances of the murders. However, it turns out to be one of the troupe members, using the legend to their advantage to take revenge on the leader of the troupe by taking everything away from him. The mystery is solved, though it’s left a little ambiguous how some of the finer details of the murder were committed, and maybe some of it was supernatural, after all. (Hint hint ability user hint.)

The Witch’s Island -- Lapin is dragged along by another old college friend to an island off the coast, where a treasure hunt is occurring for what’s said to be a stockpile of gold. The guests are all rather eccentric, and it’s revealed that the clues to the treasure’s whereabouts are hidden in a vaguely creepy old nursery rhyme. The rhyme gets creepier when people start to die in ways relating to it, and it’s linked to the legend of a witch on the island, who was burnt at the stake for reasons involving the treasure. Eventually, though, one of the so-called treasure hunters is revealed as the culprit, a self-proclaimed descendant of the witch trying to clear her name and reveal the true story, but also protecting the treasure from any who dare try to take it. During the climax, one of the other treasure hunters is revealed to be Annalise, and it’s implied that she made off with some of the treasure, or at least the monetary part of it, as the rest is not what it had been implied to be, being something only valuable in sentimental terms. It’s never determined either way whether the so-called witch really was a witch or not, however.

The Schoolyard Murders -- Detective Pym requests Lapin’s help on a personal matter; his niece, Madeline, a high school girl, goes to a school in which there has been a murder. Lapin agrees to assist him, and the two go to investigate the school. Almost all the students insist that it’s the ghost of a boy who killed himself decades ago, the school’s legend, because the school is trying to tear down the old building where he died. During the investigation, a few more people die, and a very strange black cat is seen on the premises, that people think is an ill omen. Eventually, however, it comes to light that a teacher is murdering the students who had stumbled across an innocuous thing in the old building that ends up proving the student had not killed himself, but was killed by the same teacher for discovering his illicit relationship with another student, and now the teacher is trying to cover it up. In the end the case is solved, and it seems that the cat had been helpful after all, as it wanders off into the old building and seems to vanish after having helped reveal the damning clue.

An Ancient Curse -- One of Lapin’s favorite teachers, also a famous archaeologist, invites him to the opening of an exhibit of a bunch of artifacts he’d discovered on a dig in Africa. The exhibit goes well, but after hours, the teacher is killed, and the camera footage shows that it seems as if it were some kind of ancient spirit that did it. The staff flies into a panic, but Lapin, fascinated and excited, dives right into the mystery. Several more members of the archaeological team are killed, and it seems like there really is a curse, or that the foreign member of the team is doing it as revenge for the artifacts’ ‘theft’, but in the end, it is revealed that the head of the museum is committing the murders and intending to frame the foreign team member and use the entire incident as a publicity stunt. He is arrested, but at the end it is revealed he died in custody, seemingly of a heart attack over the stress of the ordeal, but...was that really it?

The Siren’s Call -- A college friend of Lapin’s, a reporter, calls him telling him excitedly that he has a big scoop on something strange happening in a coastal town, a clue to a big mystery, but then something happens and the call is cut off. Concerned, Lapin heads out to the town in time for them to find his friend’s drowned body. The town doesn’t seem to like outsiders, but he finds a friend in the innkeeper and his teenage son Ernest, who tells him that a lot of people end up drowned around here, and they say its because of the nasty currents around the beach. But there’s also a legend of a sea monster in the caves beneath the town. As Lapin investigates, he discovers that the whole town believes in the sea monster, the Siren Mother, and treat her as a local deity, and the deaths are sacrifices to her. Ernest, too young to know about this, helps Lapin investigate further, and they discover beneath the town a large cavern with the mummified body of a woman, as well as Lapin’s friend’s bag, in which there is evidence that the town’s founder murdered a local native woman over land disputes and fabricated the Siren Mother to cover it up and control his people. The current mayor/leader of the ‘cult’ knows this, and he’s the one who killed Lapin’s friend to hide it. He shows up in the cavern, and during the struggle, both he and Ernest fall into the water. Somehow, however, Ernest survives, and he swears he heard someone humming a lullaby as they pushed him out of the water. There is no proof of that, though, and it’s written off as luck, and in the end, Ernest’s father becomes the new mayor, and the secrets are all revealed. It will take a while for the town to readjust, but Ernest and his father are willing to try.

The Red Death -- Lapin is shocked one day when Annalise appears on his doorstep, inviting him to a party at a very rich art collector’s house, implying both that she intends to steal something and that something worse might happen. Intrigued, he accepts her invitation, and they go together to the party. At the party, one of the major guests dies of a ‘strange illness’, and a murder case begins. Lapin and Annalise investigate, more guests die, and it’s uncertain whether or not it’s poison or something else, exacerbated by the mysterious man in a red coat seen around the mansion. It turns out that it is poison, the daughter of a painter who was exploited by the collector to make counterfeits taking revenge on those who abused her father. She takes her own life with the poison and jumps off the balcony, but her body is not there, and the man in the red coat is seen vanishing into the forest. Her body is found later on, laid out in the collector’s gallery beneath her father’s real paintings, with a red coat over her like a shroud. The man is never found, and Annalise does make off with a painting, but not before she says farewell to Lapin and disappears, seemingly into thin air.

The Circus Act -- Lapin goes with Pym and Madeline to a circus, and at the magician’s show, the festivities are interrupted when one of the acrobats dies in the middle of the show. An investigation begins, then, and it’s not long before a web of deceit and affairs and secrets come to light that makes it so that almost everyone has a motive for everyone else’s death. A few more people die, all in ways befitting their act in the circus, and the surviving acrobat, Berenice, fears that she is next. Lapin is in her room investigating when the killer attacks him and nearly kills him, and he wakes up bound and gagged in a box during the magician’s magic show, and realizes the magician himself is the killer. He barely survives the trick he’s stuck in, and at the climax of the show bursts out of the box to accuse the killer. The magician tries to kill Berenice, motivated by an obsession with her, and chases her up into the top of the circus tent. He tries to grab her, but falls off of the platforms above and dies. Berenice was nowhere near him, but insists that he was pushed, and wonders if it was her partner’s ghost protecting her. Either that, or he fell. Lapin is taken to the hospital, still wounded, and in addition to the get well presents from Pym and Madeline, a single rose finds its way to his hospital room with a tag reading ‘From A’.

#;hc: poe

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misterbitches · 3 years

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Most ppl porbably know this if u have been following me for a while bc i’m a prettentious hIDEOUS anarchist BITCH and i never shut up about it but i’m a filmmaker (and artiste i paint and illustrate...poorly) I hate awards shows, i hate the self-congratulatory BS rthe rich pplkin a room or ppl who want to be rich or gain social capital. No matter their color or gender etc it’s bullshit. Definition of insanity is watching this shit over and over and expecting a different outcome. It’s truly a wonderrful feeling to be acknowledged and if awards show didnt determine some bullshit (literally « good opportunities » it depends on who. What happened to lupita n’yongo?)

I have some sad news: 1 - i think other races are realizing that, much like the black counterparts they obsess over because we are just that fuckin’ fascinating, but they are fads. You are a fad ni the machine that isw bullshit Culturalism and multiculturalism as progress. Do not rest on the rich people, believe in your fucking self and do what you need. Bong Joon Ho existed befor ean dafter that win (i kidna want to go into this more but no) and barry jenkins pre-moonlight made a film that was extremely well-received and featured (shock) a black cast and good actors and was about gentrification. He took a break from filmmaking and focused on advertising IIRC for THIRTEEN YEARS. SO THEY EXIST. As for black filmmakers and arrtists we are alsways. Here. Leads me to 2; you exist and you should not be stolen from

2 - i startefd doing more research on blackface and minstrelsy digital blackface as well. And blackness is a commodity as we know butt here’s just constant fucking theft. I learned about the few succesful times balckface was incorporated (by black people ofc) and just yea. It was eye-opening. I didn’t know the oscars were happening and then i got the notif about boseman before bed and it was pointless.

I think he should have been out of the runnin at least for a bit. They knew what they were doing because the academy didn’t vote for him. I can’t remember correctly but if I have vague knowledge the movie wasn’t received super well (like, say, a fences) so maybe it makes sense. But this man died at 43 and was working through COLON CANCER (my father had the same thing, same stage, but he’s here at 62. It’s just shitty. It’s fucking shitty) and you want to evaluate his work? In this stupid fucking paradigm after this hell year? After the hell year for black people specifically (spoiler: THIS IS OUR CONSTANT) and what I find dumbfounding about this is this is capitalism. This is hollywood. This is the mainstream (refer to #1) because there has to be winners and losers. This is a hot take so maybe we dont’ need to judge posthumously—at least not in an instant way when someone passes but released a work—at least maybe not an award. Critiquing and talking about their work (like jonghyun’s album poet|artist) is different then hyoing up a construction and saying to a man who is by the way um como se dice DEAD!!!! DEAD! HELLO! And saying « lol u lost the most important awards show ‘ever’ according 2 us also ur dead also this doesnt matter and oh btw here’s an nft of this DEAD BLACK MAN’S FACE in your goodie bags! » like what is this garbage

Technology has made it so removal of ownership is an even better form of stealing. An even better way for minstrelsy to prevail on non-blackness. When black minstrelsy has existed (IE black people using that pain and stereotype as subversion, as laughs, because the trauma of being seen as an object is endless. So we have to figure out what pain you put upon us and how we can proceed) and we are innovators, creators, foundations. FIlmmaking relies on black exploitation and erasure, most art does, and we are not people until we can be commodities. We aren’t real because blackness is an expression not a state of being, not trauma and pain, not joy and immense beauty.

The thing is that (most) AI, NFTs, techno advancement (space ex lmao) isn’t about absorption, sharing, and innovating. Deepfakes all of that shit too. It facilitates THEFT. Tik Tok is born out of black theft and like most bad things that evolve black pain evolves to greater pain, particularly in america, so now black people are having their work removed or livelihoods copied (btw if ur not black u will nevr be, u will never understand our structure of feeling and who we are. I know it pains you but build a bridge and get the fuck over it. You can’t be a nigga and eschew the nigger) it seeps into regular popular culture. The fact that an NFT of nirvana’s last shoot is being sold is fucking everyhting Nirvana is against. Basquiat would probably hate that (if he could wrap his 1980s brain around the concept. I hate it. I hate it because none of it is to help artists or to go further. You don’t have to recreate a Nirvana song via AI because this time has passed. The band members wouldn’t even want that.

We can’t bottle time and memories and remove the fucking context from them. It’sd scary. And so much of this is just relying on black exploitation and theft of immense black labor. Our freedom is intrinsic to world freedom and yuo can see as things evolve how (particularly in the US but also our likeness as culture and cutural exploits) and eventually, maybe, you will be erased like us. But the thing is: we know this, we live it, we keep going. Can other people handle that? I am not so sure, though I hope they will. One last thing as more and more people try and become progressive or whatever I really just wish they understood blackness as a real root to liberation. Ending Israeli Apartheid is a big one as well; we are not free until Palestinians are free but if they get free then we have to attack the (non black) « arab » psyche of superiority. However, Palestinians have an afffinity with black people in the diaspora because of the genocidal tendencies in the US and because of SA apartheid.

I’m going to stop here but none of these things above are intersted in sharing more art and stuff. The OSCARS were cvreated to bust unions and keep black people out. Celebrities who are radical got their lives destroyed. And now we have very little legacy of people doing what they enjoy because they enjoy it and being able to speak up. It’s less of a necessity when you can just get in the room and chill. The idea is to get people realizing they dont WANT to be in the room.

Lastly: my thoughts on representation are complex. I do not believe the representation of asians is going to go as far as people think and I absolutely do not believe that it is because of the anti-asian hate and sinophobia that is borne out of this time. Hollywood has no interest in being progressive and what little we get it’s being pushed onthe inside. Even for streaming companies outside of TV—status quou is imminent. Media is propaganda and true amazing artists can convey it. But it’s more about money and fame as capital atp which is always the direction it was going.

Artists deserve happiness, ownership, and a life. They should want to say things that matter, nothing is apolitical, and we should strive to make good shit. Strive to reduce waste on sets. Strive to see people as fucking human. Art is a ridiculous stupid bougie rat-race but here I am.

#a thot

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starlightbarbie · 7 years

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(don’t reblog this post if you’re not one of my friends talking to me)

okay, you know, i changed my mind? i’m cleaning house today, airing out laundry, so why not do the same emotionally?

it’s been weighing on me too long and making me feel like a bad person but i’ve been so terrified of burning bridges that i never want to admit when i have a different opinion social-justice/spiritual-wise than my friends on here.

bc a lot of people seem to have the attitude that having a different political opinion than someone means you literally can’t interact with them again or continue being friends.

which i understand, it’s an online safe space and you want to surround yourself with like-minded people so you can enjoy your time away from the real-life people whose opinions you’re stuck around. tumblr is kind of the only place you CAN talk to ppl about lgbt, race, gender, etc issues and avoid other types of ppl.

but it just seems so, in a way, divisive and un-productive to alienate people who you enjoy talking to and being friends with, who share all of your political, social justice beliefs except ONE or TWO....just because their ideology doesn’t match perfectly with yours.

especially when they’ve been respecting your opinions the entire friendship and there’s no reason you wouldn’t be able to continue talking just without discussing those topics you’ve never discussed in the first place because they’ve been silent about them...

so maybe i’m afraid of all my friends finally learning my two differing opinions and immediately going “wow youre a bigot we cant be friends” and maybe thats presumptive and wrong but i can’t help my instinctual worries, you know? am i putting up too much self-defense here??

i hope i dont sound attack-y which i’m worried i might because whenever i get ranty....but whatever, this is all just MY opinion and if you read it i hope you can understand where im coming from and then, take from it what you will.

.hhmm. enough stalling...

ive never been “anti” otherkin--as i understand it’s a spiritual belief for some and a coping mechanism for others, and there’s no reason for me to bash that or find any fault with people who just feel a connection to a certain animal or whatever. that’s been happening for all of human existence, there are religions which believe in reincarnation, and i’m agnostic anyways.

i wasn’t raised religious, tho my mom was raised catholic--she wanted my sister and i to come to god on our own terms in our own time instead of being brainwashed by a church since babyhood. so far it just made us very secular. but i’ve had jewish, christian, muslim friends, and never disrespect anyone’s spiritual beliefs. i do preach separation of church and state and hold the political views that come with that, but i believe in freedom to express religion as long as it doesn’t infringe on another human’s rights.

but when it goes past otherkin...people identifying as animals, plants, and galaxies, that doesn’t harm anything--but when it comes to fictionkin and factkin it makes me very uncomfortable.

it feels extremely like theft of intellectual property and theft of identity. factkin, i have never actually seen a person identifying as, just people having “discourse” over, so i dont know if its even real but if it is...i dont even know if i have to argue against it, it’s literally pretending to be another person who is alive?? and is themselves. it’s way beyond wrong to pretend to actually be a famous person, and it is NOT a healthy coping mechanism. it could actually really scare or harm that person they’re pretending to be.

fictionkin is something i have seen a LOT and have friends who id that way, so that’s i guess the big topic here. no problem with otherkin, no one i know is factkin, but fictionkin....

i understand where it would come in as a coping mechanism, i really do. i can relate. i have characters that i’m very attached to, that i relate to very much, that i look up to and want to emulate. some of them i even feel unreasonably possessive over, like “well that’s my favorite character, they can’t be your favorite character if they’re already mine” which probably comes in to play with fictionkin feeling like they ARE the character so nobody else can be the character.

but the thing is, i can’t help but to feel like it’s intellectual property being stolen. it’s one thing to roleplay, to say “hey i know i dont own this character but i’m gonna pretend to be them and explore different scenarios.” the same for cosplaying or writing fanfiction and making fan art. using characters somebody else created to INSPIRE your own art is all fun and games as long as you dont claim to own any of the copyrighted materials.

claiming to BE the fictional character is totally claiming to own it. not legally obviously, i don’t think any fictionkin think they legally have rights to their kin, but definitely a huge mark of ownership to say “This is Me.”

they didn’t create that character. they didn’t spend hours, days, months, pouring their heart soul sweat blood and tears into bringing that character to life. the writer/artist did. when you write, you put literally all of yourself into your characters. every bit of it comes from your thoughts, your unique worldview, the things you’ve seen and learned all mixed together and spat out in a new form. it all comes from the mind of the character’s creator. in a way, their characters are each, them, or have their blood running through their metaphorical veins.

i am PASSIONATE about writing.

claiming to BE that character, that a writer put so much of themselves into, is almost like claiming to be that writer too. at least like carving out a piece of their mind and saying “this is mine, it came from my life in another universe. it doesn’t belong to you. it’s not a unique pattern of emotions and ideas and creativity that you spent years developing. it’s just me from another universe, what a coincidence, right?”

it’s so offensive to steal another person’s hard work like that. and tumblr--tumblr--is supposed to be this place where people care about art theft and crediting the owners matters? and that makes me very, very uncomfortable as an aspiring writer who has my own original characters developing in my head.

important side note: i dont think you can say that fictionkin doesnt actually hurt anyone the way factkin obviously would. i have seen personal accounts from people on tumblr that said people were tagging their ocs/self portraits as kin, or telling them that they were kin with their ocs and they were writing the story wrong in some way, and they were very distressed by it.

so. i have never said anything because i dont want to hurt anyones feelings and i dont want to lose friends, but i also have to be honest and say what i believe if i want to respect myself as a person. so that’s what i believe.

and i don’t think it’s a necessary course of action to cut off ties with someone because they dont believe in fictionkin. its like stopping being friends with someone because they have a different religion than you. i’ve had christian, jewish and muslim friends and as i said, i’m non-religious.

i understand that maybe identifying as a character is more tied with your personal identity than your religious identity, so it’s natural you would feel like people should accept that that character is part of your personality--but please understand that i can accept that there are aspects of all those characters in you and that you relate to them, without expecting me to believe that infinite universes AND reincarnation across those universes exist, which is more than any of my religious friends have asked of me. (ie no one has tried to convert me to their personal spiritual beliefs)

so that said, idk if anyone read all of this, but if you want to stop being my friend over it i wont try to make you change your mind. if youre uncomfortable talking to me after this, its fine and i wont push it. i gave my reasoning for why im willing to stay friends and put our different beliefs aside so know that youre always welcome in my life if you want to be, but i wont force you if you dont.

the next one is worse. stay tuned.

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vaporize-employers · 6 years

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like i feel like i should clarify my stance on that whole “adults should put their age range in their bio so that underage followers can choose to follow or talk to them” post. because people are still fussing over it and its really not as controversial or extreme as people seemed to interpret it

i actually dont care if 20+ year olds put their age in their bio in every circumstance (not what op was saying anyway, but w/e). there are def people in circumstances who cannot share *any* personal info on their blog w/o risk (the identity theft one is still weak af tho. lmao).

it also depends on the blog/blogger; this is just a personal blog with a mixture of politics, memes, and cute animals. im not attracting a particular demographic of any age, i dont randomly talk to people i dont know very much, and i wouldnt want to talk about anything potentially inappropriate with someone i dont know. i just wouldnt want to. i do it for my underage followers convenience, so that they can choose to set whatever boundaries they want with me, but it doesnt really matter *that* much if i show my age on this blog, for those reasons

i also run a fashion blog and an aesthetic/art blog; i never talk to anyone on those accounts and i have nothing else about myself. definitely doesn’t matter in those cases.

most of the reason im for it is that every adult ive seen being absolutely outraged by the very suggestion is playing victim against literal children (which is absolutely pathetic), blatantly defending the exact predatory behavior that this suggestion is meant to combat, and in many cases, just spewing straight up rape apologism. and its disgusting.

so frankly, my real position on whether or not adults should openly declare their age? is pretty flexible. if you dont want to because you truly, genuinely are afraid to share that info, dont feel guilty about it. just be mindful and dont start sexual or otherwise inappropriate conversations with total strangers- if youre that worried about your privacy, you should do that for *your* protection as well.

but if your position is that you wont do it because you shouldnt have to, or because youve “paid your dues” in fandom (whatever the fuck that means), or worst of all, because you think kids are “equally responsible” for protecting themselves from sexual advances made by adults, then Fuck. You.

tl:dr; put your age or not, idrc and nobody is forcing you to anyway, but if you blame kids that get groomed by adults online for not “knowing better” i hope you fucking choke

#csa m/#long post #mine

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