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I love how all of the Batman villains are like “ah he’s not at the manor, it’s defenseless! and then alfred just racks an AK-47 and is like pull up bitch

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Shout out to writers who can’t do plots, who write about feelings and moments in time instead. I love reading those fics, and I love writing those fics. Keep on peering into the depths of characters’ hearts and souls in the little moments. You’re exploring the places where canon often fears to tread. 

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I made this to celebrate a milestone on Instagram and thought you guys might appreciate it too! It’s little tutorial showing how I paint helmets step by step!

1. I always start with a loose sketch of what I want the piece to look like. I don’t spend much time on it because I do my linear later on, but if you want, you can spend more time refining the lines and use it instead of doing step 5

2. I choose the base colours of each area of the drawing, painting over the sketch

3. Looking at references, I define how the light will be reflecting the helmet

4. I blend the colours, making sure I have a smooth texture to work with

5. Drawing the linear! I like to draw it in a way that in the areas where lines connect I have darker and harder lines, while other areas are lighter and softer

6. Adding highlights! This is probably my favourite part as its where I can start to see things coming together.

7. I use mostly cool tones to paint Din’s helmet, so at this stage I add a few highlights in warmer tones, I also increase the contrast in areas that need it and correct any mistakes that I missed before. I usually finish the painting by adding a noise filter over it.

And that is it!

I’m really grateful to you all for the support and I hope you liked to know a little bit more about my painting process!

And a tiny disclaimer: this is how I paint, it is not the correct way or the better way (hell no!) to do it, but it is how I do it (:

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If you think you have never stolen artwork, read this post.

So, art theft. If you’ve been a follower of mine, you’ve heard my barely-coherent rants about this before, but I thought it might be more productive to make a more coherent post on the subject.

If you’re wondering about the title of the post here, it’s because I feel like a lot of people aren’t really grasping what exactly art theft is, and a LOT of people, even well-meaning ones, do it without even realizing it.

“But wait,” you say. “I would never STEAL from an artist!! I never claim it as my own!” And that’s all fine and good, but you’re missing something here.

To start things off, what IS art theft? (It’s not what deviantART said it was several years back, I’ll tell you that much. *cough*)

We all know what art is, so let’s talk about theft. Dictionary.com defines “theft” as “the act of stealing; the wrongful taking and carrying away of the personal goods or property of another; larceny.” Okay, makes sense, but what about that other word there, stealing? Dictionary.com defines “steal” as “to take (the property of another or others) without permission or right, especially secretly or by force.”

From those definitions, we can go on to define art theft as, specifically, “taking art without permission or right.” In the context of art, that typically involves reposting it (not reblogging–reblogging is different) or using it for other things.

And there, my friends, is the issue.

If something is taken or used without permission, it is stolen. Permission is the important thing here–if an artist says “oh yeah, you can go ahead and use this!” then it’s not stolen. You have their permission. But if you DON’T have that, then it IS stolen. It IS theft.

“But I’m not claiming it as my own!” you say. But you don’t have to claim it as your own–the act of taking it in and of itself is an act of theft.

“But I said ‘credit to the artist!’” The “credit” thing is a whole other conversation, but here’s the short of it: The entire point of credit is to direct people to the source of something. If you are not directly linking to where you got the art from, you are not giving credit. “Credit to the artist” is not actually credit of any kind whatsoever. (Also, Google and Pinterest are not sources.)

“But I DID link back to the artist!” Okay, now this is where it may get confusing, because you may think you’re covered because you actually did give credit. Here’s the problem: if you reposted it or used it without permission, regardless of whether you gave credit or not, it’s still stealing.

I’m bolding this because it’s a point that a lot of people get tripped up on. Let me explain it this way: If you went into your neighbor’s house and took something of theirs without their permission, but you told people “oh yeah, I got this from [neighbor]’s house!” that that would still, of course, be stealing, and it’s no different for art.

Another thing is that even when you credit, people don’t always check the source. Very recently I found a case where someone had reposted a piece of artwork of mine to Pinterest that was deliberately made to look like it came from the source material (it wasn’t meant to confuse anyone, though–the description of my original post made it very clear that it was fanart). The person who reposted had linked back to my original post. The problem? The comments had people asking if this was official, where it happened in the source material, etc. Despite the fact that the source was right there, no one thought to look at it.

Even if you link back to the source, if you did it without the artist’s permission, it’s still stealing, and still causes problems for us artists.

“But I just posted it to my Pinterest–” DO NOT DO THIS. DO NOT POST AN ARTIST’S WORK TO PINTEREST IF YOU DO NOT HAVE THEIR EXPLICIT PERMISSION TO DO SO.

“But this artist friend of mine says they’re okay if I post their work to my Pinterest so long as I link back to them!” Good for your friend! But the fact that your friend is okay with it doesn’t mean that all artists are okay with it. For me, personally, I am very not okay with my work being posted to Pinterest, and say as much on my art blog description and posts (which people tend to ignore).

The problem with Pinterest–and reposting art in general–is that we artists don’t know when it happens unless we’re told, or unless we find it ourselves. It causes us to lose control of our art. And because of this, our art can spiral further out of our control, because when our works get posted to Pinterest or other similar websites, people who have no grasp whatsoever on how art works will just take it as “free art” and then use it for whatever they want.

That’s how a piece I spent 20+ hours on was used as a poster for a paid event, without my permission, and without any payment or credit to me.

If an artist has said nothing about Pinterest (or other similar image sharing sites), your default should be to assume that they don’t want their artwork posted there.

“Well I didn’t repost someone’s art, but I did use it for my avatar/RPing icon/video/fic cover/photo edit–” That’s still stealing. If you’re using it without their permission for any reason, that is stealing. Not to mention, the artist may not be cool with what you’re using their art for anyway. (Looking at you, people who use platonic art in your shipping videos.)

“I MEANT to ask them for permission, but I forgot!” This can ONLY happen if you used the artwork BEFORE you asked for permission. You can resolve this by asking for permission BEFORE you use it, rather than assuming the answer will be ��yes” and using it before asking.

“But it took me a really long time to make that icon/video/cover/edit!!” How long do you think it took the original artist to draw their piece? It doesn’t matter how much work you put into modifying someone else’s art–if you’re doing it without their permission, you’re still stealing.

“But I couldn’t find the original artist! I tried to find them, I really did, but I couldn’t. Is it okay to use their art then?” No, because you still don’t have permission, and by reposting it anyway, you’re continuing to make the artwork spiral out of their control.

“What if I found the artist, but they speak a different language from mine? I can’t ask them for permission, so is it okay if I repost their art anyway?” NO!! DO NOT DO THIS!! If there is a language barrier, use Google translate or find someone to translate for you and get a hold of the artist that way to ask them for their permission. The language barrier is NEVER an excuse to steal artwork. There are plenty of non-English-speaking artists who have taken ALL OF THEIR ARTWORK OFFLINE because the art theft was completely out of control. (And this isn’t just exclusive to English-speakers stealing art from people who don’t speak their language. It happens artists who don’t speak English stealing art from English-speakers, too, but as this post is written in English it doesn’t do much good for me to rant about this here.) If you can’t ask their permission, do not use it!!

“But what about reblogging?! Isn’t that the same as reposting?? Should we not reblog art at all then?” No, reblogging (or retweeting) is not the same as reposting. If you reblog art, you keep all the information that we attached to the art, including our blog name and the description attached to the art. Reblogging/retweeting actually helps us artists A LOT, so as long as you’re reblogging from the original artist (and not someone who’s reposting their art), by all means, reblog our art!

“What if I just want to share someone else’s artwork on Discord or show it to a friend?” This one’s a bit different and is not actually as problematic. If you want to share our work on Discord or whatever, just link directly to where we posted it. Please don’t post the art itself, unless you’re doing it alongside a link because Discord won’t show a preview or something.

“What about a forum or a site like Reddit?” This one’s a bit different, since due to the way Reddit functions, if you LINK to the art, you have to go directly to the artist’s original page to view it. (At least, that’s what it’s like the last time I was active there.) In a way it’s roughly the same as with Discord–be sure you’re linking directly to the actual post rather than just uploading the art on its own–but I would also ask the artist if they’re okay with it, because they may be a member of the subreddit or forum and want to post it themselves, or they might not want their work shared to specific communities. (Some communities have a function where a bot will repost the artwork to Imgur, and some artists don’t want that done with their art.)

“What if I’m saving it to my computer/phone to look at later, or making it into my desktop/phone wallpaper?” IMO this is fine, since your computer/phone files aren’t public, and neither is your wallpaper. It’s only a problem when you post it to public places without our permission.

“What if it’s art I commissioned?” Well… like… in that case, it’s art you paid for, so unless the artist you commissioned laid out very specific terms for you, you should be good to use that art. Like, at most, the artist may ask you to credit them somewhere in your blog description if they drew your icon or something, or credit them in a fic description if you commissioned a fic illustration from them, or something to that effect. It’s really something you should have already worked out with the artist beforehand, but for the most part you should probably be fine to use art you paid for however you like.

“What about art I requested?” This is a bit different from commissioned work. Just because the art was drawn at your request doesn’t mean it’s explicitly yours (unless it’s like, a drawing of your original character or something). Some artists take requests more as suggestions, so the art they draw in response to a suggestion or request is still theirs. Treat this as you would any other artwork and ask the artist for permission first before you do anything with the artwork you requested from them.

“What about NFTs?” … Okay this one I can’t really go over too much because I barely understand it in the first place, but NFTs are BAD for artists and are a form of art theft. Do not turn people’s art into NFTs. This is a crappy thing to do. (If you want more information on this one, you’ll have to look it up yourself. It’s a form of cryptocurrency and it’s confusing.)

“If you don’t want your art stolen you shouldn’t post it in the first place.” This is fascinating logic. Try applying it to something else and see how it holds up. “If you don’t want your merchandise stolen, you shouldn’t open a booth.” “If you don’t want to get poisoned you shouldn’t eat food.” “If you don’t want to get punched in the face, don’t walk outside.” Yes. Flawless logic. Truly.

“Why do you care so much, anyway?! I’m sharing your art because I like it! That’s a compliment! Shouldn’t you be happy?” Well, we’re certainly glad you like our art, but the problem is… as I’ve said before, reposting our art causes us to lose our control over it. When we lose control of our art, that damages our livelihood. As I said before, other people have made money off of my artwork. As well, some artists lose jobs because when their potential employers check out their portfolio, they may find artwork that’s been reposted everywhere online, so they cannot hire the artist because they believe they may have stolen the artwork in their own portfolio.

Your reposting an image you thought was cute to Facebook or Pinterest could cost an artist their job. Think about that.

So, tl;dr, keep this in mind: you need the artist’s permission to repost or use their artwork. If you do not have it, it is stealing, even if you credit the artist.

I know this post is really harsh in places, but this is such an important thing for all artists, and there’s so many misconceptions about art theft online. And I feel like one of the biggest problems is that when some people see posts on art theft, they ignore them, because they think they’ve never done it or would never do it, so that’s why I worded this post the way I did. I’m not trying to hurt anyone–I just want people to understand what art theft is, how it affects us artists, and how you can avoid it. Thank you for reading.

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"why are you smiling at your phone? is it a boy?" no mom it's this fucking amazing jeffmads fic that I love so much

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If this post gets

60,000 notes by my 24th birthday (13th August, 2021) I’ll make/self-publish an art book with all my ace spec art in it...

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home is where the heart is- jamilmads

I have, in fact, been writing! Have some Jamilmads. I’m working on Wings Of Privilege, I promise, but in the meantime here’s this. TW for alcohol/drunkenness

Thomas sighed. He’d gone to the bar to relax, not to deal with his very inebriated coworker, but here he was, standing outside with a drunk Alexander Hamilton leaning on him. “Come on,” he said, “let’s get you home.” 

“Home is where the heart is,” Alexander muttered. Thomas just shook his head. 

“Well, where do you sleep at night, then?” Alexander ignored him. “You’re my home,” he whispered. Thomas froze. 

“You’re drunk,” he said, more to himself than to Alex. No. Alex didn’t mean it that way. Besides, James was waiting for him at home, loyal like he’d always been. And yet here Thomas was, hoping Alex did mean it that way. 

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Hamcember prompt: Postcard (Hamgelica fluff)

@neptrabbit here’s the Hamgelica fluff! It was originally going to be Eliza’s wedding but the postcard prompt worked better and I actually had a plot for it.

The envelope was addressed to “The Most Charming And Beautiful Angelica Schuyler”, from “The Ravishing Suitor Of Miss Angelica Schuyler, Alexander Hamilton”. The postcard it contained depicted the White House, in all its splendor, green lawn illuminated by the sun. It was a well-taken photo, but that wasn’t what Angelica was focused on. She flipped it over. The backside was crammed with writing, as was the double-sided page taped to the bottom, Alexander’s scrawl illegible to most who did not know him well. But of course, Angelica knew him very, very well. She pulled it out, a small smile on her face, and began to read.

My dearest, Angelica,

Angelica’s heart skipped a beat. Only Alexander could make her blush with just a comma.

It’s been awfully dreary in Virginia, especially without you to shake things up. I hate it. Jefferson keeps challenging everything I say, and sometimes I feel it is simply because I have said it. I have no idea how you stay friends with that prick. I think he fancies you.

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something like love- jamilton

I wrote something! It’s short, 500 words aprox. but I wanted to post it. here you are!

Alexander wrote him a letter.

It was, as most things written by him are, long, passionate and very, very detailed. But this time, instead of documenting all the reasons why Jefferson was wrong and should give in to him, he wrote about the way his long fingers looked wrapped around a pen, the intense gleam in his eyes he got when they were fighting, the way he wanted him to crush him in his arms and kiss him so badly, wanted that mouth on his, wanted him to look at him with something other than unadulterated hatred. Something like love. 

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Hamilton: So apparently, I’m in love with Jefferson. Hamilton: I didn’t realize this. Hamilton: I am deeply offended that nobody told me. Jefferson: I mentioned it once or twice. Hamilton: Absolutely nobody. Shocked and upset.

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jamilton AU- wings of privilege (title under construction)

i completely forgot how to say “working on the title” so there’s that

anyways here’s something that I wrote! I’m pretty proud, I wrote around 1200 words in like an hour so hell yes me! credit to @syrannight for giving me the idea!

The royal family didn’t have guards. 

Well, that was a bit of a stretch. They did have guards, but very few. Why bother? They were above every single one of their subjects. Literally. 

The royal family was born with wings. Large, feathered, honest-to-god wings that unfolded behind their backs. They said it was the gods’ gift, that they were chosen to lead by the higher powers. The people believed them, perhaps not loving them but accepting them as their rulers. Well, they used to love them.

The people had seen no reason to end their monarchy; the Jeffersons were fair and kind and led their kingdom through times of great prosperity and freedom. They loved their people, and their people loved them in return. The Jeffersons were good.

Until they weren’t.

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WAKE UP SLEEPYHEAD- jamilton

this one’s a bit NSFW (just mentions of someone “sleeping with” someone else) and it’s based on the wake up sleepyhead vine, it’s also pretty short but I figured I’d post it. 

Hercules and John grinned at each other. They were standing outside Alex’s room door, preparing to barge in and wake him up loudly, because why not? It was getting late anyways, even for the weekend; Lafayette was in the kitchen clearing up their breakfast already. They were planning to film it and laugh at him later; after all, why let such a good reaction go to waste? John held up his phone, showing Hercules that he was filming. They nodded at each other and opened the door slowly, trying not to make a sound.

“WAKE UP SLEEPYHEAD!” Hercules screamed. John, not expecting it, almost dropped the camera. Alexander only stirred slightly. “Wanna sleep,” he mumbled, flapping his hand at them. “Fuck off,” someone else said. Alexander wasn’t phased. Hercules stared at John, who stared back. “What the fuck?”

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omg they were roommates

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febuwhump day 3- imprisonment (whamilton)

this is really late, I know! I did a fuckton of research that ended up being obsolete :/ anyways have this! it’s nearly 2000 words and I’m proud of myself!

cw for depictions of getting beaten up

When Alexander begins to regain consciousness, the first thing he notices is that he can’t see- a black cloth is wrapped around his head, covering his eyes. Certain that this is not some sort of prank, especially not something his friends would pull in the middle of a war, he gets up slowly, feeling the wall he’d been propped up against. It’s plaster,  the kind of wall that you’d find in a permanent home. Odd.

He parses his memory. All he comes up with is getting into his cot and actually trying to sleep for once instead of working some more. And look where it got me, he thinks dryly. I’m never sleeping again.

A door creaks open and then slams shut. “Well, well, well,” a man’s voice says. It’s somehow oily, if a voice could be oily, and Alexander cringes away from the source. “Look what we have here,” he continues. “Washington’s little pet.” Alex’s first, panicked thought is how does he know?, and then he realizes this man cannot possibly know just how deep his affection for his commander runs. Besides (and much to his chagrin), it’s not like Washington’s ever done anything about it, no matter how certain Alexander is that his feelings are reciprocated. He’s too virtuous, Alex often thinks. But then again, he’d never have him any other way.

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a little jeffmads for the soul

exactly what it says on the box. please enjoy.

Thomas and James sit together on a small hill on the lawn, leaning against the tree at the top of the hill. Well, Thomas is leaning on the tree trunk, and James is leaning on him, content to simply enjoy their surroundings; Thomas’s arms around him, the wind wrapping around him, the shouts of some kids playing on the university’s campus. It’s cold- sweater weather, James notes wryly- but Thomas is somehow warm as always. 

A particularly cold gust of wind hits him and he shivers involuntarily. Thomas takes notice immediately. “Jemmy, are you okay? Shit, we should probably get inside, it’s too cold, I-”

“I’m fine, Thomas,” James says, rolling his eyes, although he’s fighting the urge to wrap his arms around himself. 

“No you’re not,” Thomas says, pulling off his sweater. “You’re going to get sick again if you keep this up. Here.” He pulls the sweater over James’ head, ignoring his squeals of protest. James hmphs, but accepts his fate, leaning back against Thomas. 

“What about you?” he asks. Thomas shrugs him off. “I’ll be fine, I’m always warm,” he says. “Plus, I have a big teddy bear of a boyfriend to cuddle,” he continues, pulling James closer. 

James sighs contentedly, leaning into him. “I love you, Thomas.” 

“Love you too.”

comments ascend me to a higher plane of existence, likes don’t do shit but i get high on reblogs

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home is where the heart is- jamilmads

I have, in fact, been writing! Have some Jamilmads. I’m working on Wings Of Privilege, I promise, but in the meantime here’s this. TW for alcohol/drunkenness

Thomas sighed. He’d gone to the bar to relax, not to deal with his very inebriated coworker, but here he was, standing outside with a drunk Alexander Hamilton leaning on him. “Come on,” he said, “let’s get you home.” 

“Home is where the heart is,” Alexander muttered. Thomas just shook his head. 

“Well, where do you sleep at night, then?” Alexander ignored him. “You’re my home,” he whispered. Thomas froze. 

“You’re drunk,” he said, more to himself than to Alex. No. Alex didn’t mean it that way. Besides, James was waiting for him at home, loyal like he’d always been. And yet here Thomas was, hoping Alex did mean it that way. 

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