this mess is a place

god i'm so tired of everybody's bad faith interpretations of everything. where's the trust. where's the forgiveness. where's the understanding that most things are complex and most people have many layers. and like the black eyed peas once said. where is the love

“this character did a problematic thing-” its a story helen, commonly including things like conflict and drama

there is never too much art. there is never "everyone depicts this scene/character so if I depict it, it won't add anything" yes it will. no two people will do the exact same piece of art even with the same prompt. so paint or draw or sketch or write your favorite character or scene from your favorite movie or TV show. there will always be someone who wants more of your art and more of what you have made and there is never too much art

I'm sorry to all the tone-indicator people, but "/hj" will always mean "end of handjob" for me

weirdest part about being an artist (and, to an extent, a writer too) is feeling like. shameful that you aren't creating massive pieces of art. how dare i not line and color and shade every drawing. how dare i only draw two poses. how dare i only write 1k words. how dare i not write an entire book. how dare i

(looking at the near 1k pieces of art in my folder and the thousands of words in my notes) you know i just don't think i do enough actually

I just had a small epiphany why you might like other people's art more than your own:

It's the lack of suspension of disbelief.

When you see something someone else has drawn or painted, you take in the content faster than you take in the technical aspects. You experience it as pseudo-real, the same way you stop perceiving animated characters as drawn or book characters as written as you get into the story.

On the other hand, when you yourself have made something, all you see is the machine behind the theater, so to speak. You're probably thinking about lines, shading, coloring in a "does this make sense? Is this the best decision I could have made?"-kind of way.

I think that's also why sometimes, pictures you haven't looked at for a long time starts looking nice to you again, à la: "Hey past-me was unto something! Why can't I replicate it nowadays?". It's probably specifically because you've forgotten the process of making it that you are now seeing it with fresh eyes.

Art is an illusion, but a magician has a hard time tricking themself. So don't be so hard on yourself: it's probably just that you can't see the magic right now, but that doesn't mean it's not there.

The OTW was designed, at its core, for stability. For the ability to withstand any level of fandom drama (internal or external), media attention, or hostile activism from religious nuts, conservative politicians, or assimilationist "progressives."

Some events that shaped the structure of the OTW:

(Side note: the OTW decision parts are not all directly related to the causes mentioned. These are "three things that happened" and "some things the OTW built into their structure, partially inspired by these three things.")

In 2015, a few days after the election, the entire existing board resigned, leaving the whole org in the hands of the two new electees (who had to appoint 5 more people to the board).

Most of fandom today does not know this, because an event that would destroy most nonprofits was barely even noticed outside of the official communications channels.

Some of the OTW's problems - a lot of the OTW's problems - are the glacially slow pace at which it makes changes.

"Hey this would be a good thing to do" comes up, goes around gets agreed on, someone volunteers to look into the practical logistics, someone else mentions how it would affect this-or-that committee and yet another someone else starts putting together a list of feature requirements, and then there's costs to discuss, and legalities, and hey now we have a different committee head here or there and they need to be brought up to date on the project, and someone publicly posts some rumors they've heard about it so another committee has to be brought in to explain what's really going on, and then there's rumor-squashing both internal and external to deal with, and somewhere in that mess is a need for actual progress on the original plan. Which is slow. Very slow.

Note that all of this is unpaid volunteers working in their extra time. Sometimes whoever was managing most of it has a life event - change of jobs or address, gain or lose a family member, gets sick, goes to school/graduates, etc. - and the amount of time they have to pour into the OTW plummets.

The OTW is designed to function, business-as-usual, while all of that is going on.

It is possible the current round of communications, complaints, activism, are the start of another 2015-esque org-wide shakedown and changeover.

...If so, that won't be visible from the outside, until a handful of new features get released. They won't be obviously connected to the changes.

Even if Denise is correct about the OTW being out of compliance with various data laws... legal action about that kind of thing can take years to process. There is no "what if the OTW goes down tomorrow;" the OTW is not megaupload (and takes care to not become megaupload) (which, although it did vanish overnight, also had years of legal complaints involved... it wasn't a secret that it was at risk of gov't action).

If you trust nothing else about the OTW... believe that it knows how to say, "This problem? WIP. Not abandoned. Will update eventually."

Whether or not it updates is a separate problem. But it sure does know how to sit there in a holding pattern.

It’s pretty hilarious how many people don’t remember the whole Board quitting.

*If you can't walk that far or the roads to the store aren't safe to walk just pretend you can and they are for the purposes of this poll.

The bread knife is the least washed utensil

Things I love about summer. Peaches, plums, nectarines, and roses! Butterflies and bees making honey! So many flowers! All the berries but especially blackberries. Dragonflies and thunderstorms. Waking up to the sunrise. The sky is so dang blue and the clouds so white and fluffy. Pride stuff in June. The grapes growing on the vines. Jumping spiders because they are cute. Daddy-long-legs because they eat so many mosquitoes. Beautiful (and scary) Orb weavers and their webs in the morning dew. Also scary but fascinating Wolf spider mamas with their spiderlings clustered on their backs. The dawn chorus. Hummingbirds, buntings and the songs of mocking birds. Lizards and snakes and turtles. Men and women in short shorts and crop tops and tight t-shirts. All the frogs and their croaking and peeping. Crickets. Red wing blackbirds and migratory hawks. Little kids riding their bikes and teens racing by on three wheelers. Ice tea. Those weird bugs that look like they have gears on their back legs. The smell of pine duff in the heat. Summer love songs.

cutting child porn from ao3 is not going to be a ‘slippery slope’ to full blown ‘censorship’, you guys are just pedophiles

There is no child porn on AO3. That is a false statement perpetuated by pro censorship groups in order to promote their repressive goals. 

Child pornography is pornographic material (images, videos etc) of actual children. That is why it is illegal to produce, transmit, or possess. Because it involves the sexual abuse, assault and exploitation of ACTUAL REAL CHILDREN. 

AO3 is a US website that abides by US law. US law prohibits any involvement whatsoever with child porngraphy -  possession, creation, transmission etc. If there was child pornography on AO3 not only would the website be taken down but everyone involved would be in prison. This has not happened because there is no child pornography on the site. 

There are some fictional stories on AO3 that include fictional sex scenes between fictional characters who are underage. But that is not child porgraphy and is legal. Just the way Game of Thrones has sex scenes involving underage characters but that’s legal because in real life the actors and actresses are all legal adults. It is legal because no actual children are harmed. 

Actual children are harmed though when pro censorship people pull stunts like trying to report AO3 to the FBI for child pornography. While these complaints did not result in any actions against AO3 because there was no child pornography it means that time that could have been used to investigate real claims about real child pornography that put real children in harms way was wasted. And that hurts children.

But these people don’t care about children. They don’t even care about banning fictional subject matter that depicts underage sex. If they did they would be campaigning equally hard against HBO for airing Game of Thrones and George RR Martin for writing A Song of Ice and Fire both of which include underage sex scene as well as other dark subject material like rape. What they really care about it claiming the moral high ground to justify harassment campaigns and censorship of marginalized communities. 

bruh don’t hide this in the tags

bc bullies choose smaller targets

one of the best things ever is when u find a really talented artist whos obsessed with an obscure/unpopular character and just lovingly draws their underrated guy 30 times a day even tho all their posts get 5 notes. these ppl are the backbone of society. they’re thriving theyre mentally unchained

If you can't wash it off, paint over it, replace the item, or buff it out, turn a message of hate into one of love! I would never condone someone to do this discreetly and in mere seconds with a quickly concealed permanent marker, for example on a public bench or bus stop. Certainly not anything like whipping out a tat machine and adding to an unconscious white supremacist's existing tattoo. That would be illegal! :) And, dear followers, I would never encourage you to do something that's illegal. So, please only use this when someone has defaced your personal property to avoid breaking the law! Because that would be illegal, and following in the law is always in everyone's best interest. :) .... :) reblogs and even reposts definitely welcome

I wanted to put a more positive spin on the popular skeleton leaving meme

"Where has all the genuine self-expression gone? Now what used to be authentic subculture is turned into a performance of Aesthetic!" so many posts exclaim, usually concluding that the problem is Capitalism.

I don't disagree entirely, but. The problem is that y'all are so deathly fucking afraid of things Cringe, Weird, and Uncool that anything unmarketable, subversive, or oddball enough to be "genuine subculture" is gross and unacceptable to you.

People wish to see "genuine self expression" that is not a performance or a commodity.

Very well then. I assume you're appreciating and celebrating the dress, style and behavior of somewhat shabby, weird outcasts who firmly refuse to make themselves palatable to you?

I think some of you are forgetting what "subculture" means. If it makes everybody around you think you are cool and look nice, that's missing the point a little bit. That's just...culture!

When people express themselves in a way that is not a performance to appeal to others...

...it is actually very likely that they will...not appeal to you.

"Why can't people be unapologetically themselves, in a way that is of course never "cringy" or too weird or too ugly or uncool? Why can't we have self-expression without performance, in a way that is not boring to me and that doesn't weird me out?"

Do you see the problem?

There are still robust, thriving subcultures full of unique fashion and artistic expression...

"Ah, but you see, that one is personally unappealing to me!"

That's the Point, you fools!

I see how people talk about non-binary youths with hair dyed in funny colors. But there is such a young person of indeterminate gender I see sometimes on my college campus with "Trans Liberation Now!" and a bunch of other symbols and slogans hand-painted on their jacket, and they are a million times more "Punk" than anyone with simply piercings and spiky chokers

I was thinking about the incredibly cruel phenomenon of taking photos of strangers without consent and uploading them to websites so others can mock them, in the vein of "People of Walmart" and other such things, and when looking it up, I was disturbed to see how many of them are just 1) a fat person is in public (wow!) or 2) a (perceived) man is being obviously gender non-conforming 

they are just existing. probably at a more advanced level than you.

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I wish Americans fucked with more foreign music. You don’t have to know the language to appreciate a good record. Folks in other countries listen to our music and don’t speak a lick of english. Music needs no translator

yall wont trick me into listening to kpop

You can try Radiooooo.com - The Musical Time Machine!!

choose a country, pick a decade, and GO!!

you’ll get an endless streaming of songs (ad free!).

I personally found myself loving 1970s Ghana, Senegal and Cote d’Ivoire! Also 1920s and 1970s Japan for sure! Cambodian music: spectacular. Love Armenia and Mali as well. I’ve been told 70s Germany is weird and 30s Algeria is cool but I haven’t gotten around to those yet. Italy’s 1960s is bomb ofc but I’m biased ;)

This is the best website anyone has ever shared.