#BUT DON'T YOU DARE DISRESPECT THE ART OF MUSIC

[emphasis-on-the-oopsie]

FUCK YOU JANET LUBELLE

[josnhoes]

I have not yet had the ability to sit down and actually watch the Hades playthrough yet, I got a few doctors' appointments, but I just HAD to send this in before I forgot. SA!AU Y/N gets so tired of them not calling them by their name they decide to talk to them in a way they would understand. "I honestly find it rather disrespectful that you don't call me by my name, it is almost as if you do not want people to know the person who you claim to occupie my role. Is my name such a foul thing?" A🐺

I understand doctors keep you busy believe me. I'm disabled and have a few chronic illnesses so I basically live in hospitals it feels like. I do really hope you enjoy hades as much as I do. The story is amazing, the music is just banger after banger, and all the characters are amazing. Plus the art? -chef's kiss-

No trigger warnings.

Being worshipped was new to you. Having just been an average person before slipping between realities and all. You kept your origins a secret as once you tired to tell Nyx and she assumed the titans' prison had done something to your mind and you needed to be watched to be sure you were safe. It got to be over bearing at times. But the worst thing was the way they referred to you. 'Your Grace' this or 'The First God' that, even after what felt like months of reminding them all they can call you by name for no change. Zagreus had tried, but you'd seen the way the others iced him out for being so friendly with you.

It was angering, and most importantly it was lonely. You *wanted* to make bonds with them all, these characters who were now real that you had come to be so attached to; Yet they all put you in a gilded pedestal.

The day you snapped wasn't too crazy, the Olympians where once *again* visiting to bask in your presence since you chose to stay here with Zagreus. They thought it was due to your favor of him, which played some part yes, but you knew the underworld and the unknown of the world beyond it was scary. All of them speaking to you never once using your name built up before you yelled, "Enough!" The room swiftly came to a hush from the previous liveliness. "I'm done. I find it so disrespectful that despite all the times I've told you to call me by name everyone of you refuses. Is it me you worship or the idea of me? Is my name a curse? A blight? An insult so profane you dare not speak it despite me telling you all to?"

There is no shift in volume the silence remains. They all have the wisdom enough to look scolded and regretful. Since it is his home Hades takes responsibility to speak first. "Your-" He starts with title again but catches himself. "[Name] I apologize. We dared not speak your name fearing the closeness would be presumptious."

"Then why after so long of me telling you all to did you persist?" His apology to you was more an attempt at justification then amends. You didn't wait for an answer once he struggled to speak. Instead you stormed off. Perhaps after this they would reflect on their behavior and have an apology ready that they mean.

[olderthannetfic]

RRverse hyperfixation anon, I know exactly what you're talking about! I left that fandom years ago but still follow the main tag for art and it seems like every third post is a flavor of anti now. The fandom actually ruined my favorite RR series, HoO, for me with it's vitriolic atmosphere long before I stopped reading YA in general.

+++

That fandom got weirdly dehumanizing towards the characters too sometimes, treating them as just a checklist of identities rather than people, and framing that as a Good And Important Thing To Do and how dare anyone be so disrespectful as to be more interested in a character's personality than their identities!

I've seen similar behavior in other Tumblr fandoms and while I think people should be able to do what they want with fictional characters, people need to stop forcing their way of doing fandom on other people.

I still remember how much it it sucked to be a teenager of color who for the first time saw a character that was somewhat similar to them – I'm from a majority white country where diversity in media is not a concern to 99% of people – in looks, experienced social issues, and personality, and who wants to explore the character as a person through AUs and such, only to be told they're being racist toward their own group for doing so.

Apparently people of color can't enjoy video games or LARPing or building computers because those are "white people hobbies". We can't like certain music, or foods or whatever because they are "white people things". And making a character enjoy those things is whitewashing them. Maybe these words come across different in America but to me they sound exactly like the local racists who want people like me gone from this country entirely.

I don't post much fandom things anymore and when I do it's usually about white male characters because for some reason I'm allowed to treat them as people.

And now I'm seeing the same type of fandom person demand Own Voices content! Don't ask for our voices if you can't even handle hearing them in such an inoffensive context!

--

This is a little bit of a nitpick, but his stuff tends to be middle grade rather than YA, no?

And yes, there is a massive double standard masquerading as "supporting" POC. In my experience, it tends to boil down to a combination of clout-chasers whipping people into a frenzy to further their own power and more or less well meaning but misguided fans who are very picky about their faves.

I totally have the same problem with gender: I'm way pickier about female characters and especially f/f than about male characters, and the upshot is that I enjoy more things with male characters. Doh! It's just an instinctive reaction. I can't turn it off.

A lot of people take that personal inability to enjoy and inflict it on everyone else in the form of being hypercritical of all fannish activity around a particular minority character. The problem is that fandom only flourishes when it's not being obsessively monitored that way.

I think people around here desperately want reality and activism to work along moralistic lines: be Correct™ and yell loud enough, and that will accomplish what you want.

But in reality, being pragmatic would work better.

We know what fosters creativity: room to fail and try things without it being a giant fucking drama. And we know where good fic comes from: a vast mountain of badfic you can mine for gems. No mountain, no top 1% of good shit!

Ultimately, these fake activistes shoot themselves in the foot. They're a blight on the causes they think they champion and impose unfair scrutiny and double standards on the minorities they claim to be protecting.

[depressedkeysmash]

anyway here's how i dropped out of highschool: i moved to ireland in late 2019 and i was supposed to start my second semester over there in january. I had my own issues settling in since no one would explain to me how to do things and i was supposed to take tests on subjects i had never even heard of before, but generally speaking i don't feel like i was causing any issues. I was quiet in class, i sat alone at lunch and yeah i was failing most of my classes except for geography art and music (i was decent in english too but i couldn't pronounce most irish names so the prof just gave up on me at some point), but it's not like i was some monster. not the one they made me out to be anyway.

i feel like i should also note that i had to wake up at 6AM to get there in time and couldn't come home until 6PM because of transportation, all of this without having had breakfast (i physically can't eat in the morning and my father wouldn't even let me have coffee since he had it first and then wanted to leave immediately after, which didn't leave time for me to make mine) and lunch (because of other registration issues. and i couldn't make my own because again, i had no time). Which means that I would usually come home (starving), eat my one meal for the day, and then collapse from exhaustion until the next morning. I was having panic attacks in the shower every goddamn morning by the end, and I usually did my homework in the halls waiting for classes to start.

Then one day this happens:

i got dress coded (i wasn't wearing the uniform on a day we didn't even have school in the first place, i wasn't there as a student and most people weren't there at all, so i thought i didn't have to. go ahead and crucify me) by the vice-principal, someone who had already made it clear she didn't like me (she kept calling me to her office mid-class for every little thing) she didn't say a word to me at first, i was waiting in the hall and she came my way, spat out a furious "you. follow me." and walked back to her office. first she said something like "do you think you can just do whatever you want around here?", then brought up some other problems i had apparently been causing since day one, like how i wouldn't wear my jumper (which literally no one did. like i'm not kidding people were only putting those on if they were cold.) or how i kept bringing my jacket, scarf and full backpack around, from class to class (but she wouldn't give me a locker despite me asking at least once a week) and then the one bad thing i did, when i couldn't take my physics text (because i had taken three classes so far and had literally no idea what anything meant) and so i just... wrote that on the page. "i'm sorry, i can't understand any of this" etcetera. there was an extra page (literally just a piece of copy paper) that we could do the math on without messing up the test, i didn't know you were supposed to give it back and i used it to doodle in the meantime. so yeah that test went really bad and the professor complained to this woman (without saying a word to me. like if she had bothered to ask me what the fuck was going on i could've explained the whole thing in seconds but nooo let's call the woman who told my father i was gay instead i'm sure she'll take care of it), which yeah was entirely my fault but i wasn't doing anything out of malice it was just a misunderstanding for fuck's sake.

and yeah by the end she's talking about me being disrespectful and having an attitude (because i had dared to interrupt her accusations to try and defend myself), until she literally told me to leave, how school clearly isn't for me and i'm old enough so i should just go.

and i did. i grabbed my bag and walked out. i think the counselor must've heard some of the conversation because as i left the office she started following me and asking me to come back, but i was in tears and still believed i had an ounce of dignity so i ignored her. when i got to the gates she told me "you can't just leave like this" and i snapped. i turned around, yelled "well i'm doing it right now" and kept walking.

not proud of yelling at that poor woman who was just trying to help some kid stay in school, but my line still feels pretty cool. my father tried to bring me back a couple days after that but i was having a really bad breakdown and i jumped out of the car and walked back home.

and yeah, that's it. that's how a 16 year old with fucking neon signs of mental illness gets fucked over and over until they break.

the end.

[mirceakitsune]

Why big websites don't handle copyright like art sites

Three journals in three days... that's a new record for me! Apparently I have to rant about yet another thing, happening in the always restless and never too complex world we have today.

There's been some drama circulating around the fandom recently, regarding a few Youtubers who make music slideshows with vore drawings taken from art galleries. The whole thing sparked up after an artist contacted such a channel to request a takedown, the user didn't agree to removing the video, and a whole riot erupted over the subject of art theft. I already expressed my view on most of these journals... which in short is that the video creator did wrong to not take down the video when requested, even if I also feel that artists going after such videos may qualify as copyright trolling, although both legally and morally they of course have every right to do so.

Now although there were both points I agree with and points I don't agree with, what bothered me in some people's reactions was something else: I'm noticing that a lot of folks are acting as if websites like Youtube and Facebook are supposed to be these heavenly places full of people that agree with each other, where a bunch of virtual police officers are ready to bring justice and solve any beef a user has with another user, and where censorship should be as harsh as national television. This is referring to a few comments which are collectively saying "how dare Youtube not immediately act against such cruel copyright infringement"... which is at least a legitimate point compared to comments like "won't you please think of the children seeing this on the free and open internet"! So allow me to blow my fucking brains off, regrow a new head, and vomit out my thoughts:

I will begin by stressing out the essential: Youtube is not Furaffinity! A website the size of Facebook cannot be moderated like a website the size of Eka's Portal! If someone steals someone else's art on here, a moderator will be dispatched. This moderator will assess the situation, say "oh yeah, I know this guy", and ban or warn the offending user. Youtube is a place used by millions... from ordinary people to media companies and celebrities. There is no one on Youtube who has the time and resources to investigate every single issue in the world. Heck they can't even find any competent coders, who can stop the website from glitching and breaking all the time... and it's Google we're speaking of here! They tried fixing their lack of moderators with an initiative called Youtube Heroes, whose purpose was allowing users to moderate the platform themselves... needles to say everyone was at Google's neck (myself included) as the program was basically going to empower internet trolls and SJW's with the right to carry out personal vendettas. So until an artificial intelligence program capable of human intelligence is researched, don't expect that to change anytime soon.

Now obviously, anyone can report an offending video. Bad news however: The system is mostly intended for the entertainment industry and popular online celebrities, who have verified websites and a mass of people that can vouch for them! You need to fill out a form containing proof that you're the author, which is also not very safe for your privacy granted they ask your real data for it. Agent Smith knows who you are, and agent Smith knows what you've been drawing. Some artists have done this still, and there are reports of it even working a couple of times, although I must say it's surprising. The person checking the complaint needs to somehow verify the data, including looking at... your... art gallery... hmmmmm.

You see, we're talking about furry vore artwork here. This basically means that when you file a copyright complaint with Youtube, you basically tell them the following: "There's this video that stole some of my art, you have to look through it and find out where it is... also here's a link to my gallery, you'll have to go through that as well and see that it matches". The moderator proceeds to watch an entire video showing all sorts of wonderful critters gobbling up each other... after which they need to enter the website furaffinity.net and open up your gallery, only to look at more of them lovely arts until they find at least one that matches. Obviously they don't even have proof that your FA gallery is truly you, though by this point they've probably taken the window rather than the elevator. I'd like to let readers picture the reaction of a Google employee, as they're drinking their coffee at the top of a skyscraper as multi-million dollar deals happen in the next office, going ahead and doing all that... because I'm legitimately having a blast every time I think about it.

Which brings us to the last issue some users brought up: *takes a deep breath of air* "At least make it age restricted! Won't anyone just think of the children, who might come across all this vore art on the free internet? What will happen when they see those images, which are almost as bad what they're seeing on Cartoon Network"? For those who believe this is a concern, there's a video I'd highly recommend watching, which explains in great detail thoughts I don't feel like typing a whole paragraph about: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umDr0mPuyQc

Conclusions and disclaimers: Before you grab your pitchtorch and fork, I am not supporting art theft! As I said a million times, if an artist asks you to remove their works from something you posted, do so out of respect for that artist. Beyond that however, and beyond the sole issue of wronging another artist by disrespecting their requests... please, let us stop making pointless drama out of things that don't require it. Also understand that as much as it sucks for some, copyright cannot be enforced everywhere on the internet: Attempting to do so usually takes more resources than possible, and punishing people over any case of copyright infringement would lead to total tirany... unless kids posting an image on Facebook should have the cops show up at their door, in which case we'd need more prisons than residential buildings. Thank you also if you stuck around to read all this, which apparently went on for longer than I thought.