#media creative

[stil-lindigo]

the machine.

a comic about being a 'creator' online.

creative notes:

[godlesshasideas]

Write more characters with physical disabilities. Write more characters with mental disabilities. Write characters with neurodivergence (more than one specific type too). Write characters with mobility aids. Write characters who have good and bad health days. Write characters who are chronically in pain, but don't express it every second. Write characters who were born with a disability. Write characters who developed one. Write characters who have adapted to the world around them because the world won't adapt for them. Write about their strengths and weaknesses due to their disability. Write about accessibility. Write about inaccessibility. Make it realistic.

Don't make the disability magically disappear or be cured (or at least be mindful of how you write that). Don't make it their entire personality but also don't skip over it. Don't use stereotypes (and that's not just with disabilities). Don't make the character actively hate their disability; they're allowed to be upset but most people with disabilities have learned to accept it as part of their life and accept it as part of their identity.

[fruitsofhell]

My other fun addition to the Hbomberguy video stuff is not just that you need to start checking everyone's sources just to make sure you aren't being duped, but to not use them as a stand in for media consumption/experiences either. Like I'm not gonna lecture you on reading sources cause I am the first one to not and that's my laziness, but like sometimes more important than checking the original analysis of something is just to... see tge thing being analyzed yourself. That's not even about misinformation or lying, sometimes people's opinions just SUCK ASS.

Like there are youtube video essayists I overall kinda respect but they have dogshit opinions on things. I used to love Jack Saint's bad faith overly critical analyses of throwaway kids films, until I realized he also saw films that in my opinion had a lot of merit, and it turned me off from him. Big Joel is cool as hell, but anytime he gives his opinion on animation save like a few points, I completely glaze over and find him annoying. The other day I watched a video essay about the "Magical Negro" trope, and the first movie sourced interested me, so I watched it and I hardly understand why they put that in, it framed the movie as something it wasn't.

Just in general, it's good practice to make sure your opinions on media are your own and experience it yourself. MY biggest takeaway from the Hbomn video wasn't to throw rocks at Somerton or start obsessively fact-checking every essayist I watch, but to make sure I have a baseline of what they talking about myself and not letting anyone throw around media examples without reckless abandon. The Celluloid Closet and Tinkerbelles and Evil Queens is on my watxh/read list now, but the first thing I did from the words he stole from Celluoid Closet was watch Rebels Without A Cause out of curiosity of this gay subtext in a 50s blockbuster. And it was a super interesting experience that has given me my own unrelated opinions. Not to discount whatever important queer reading and historical importance the film has, but I'm happy I also have more than just that cause I Watched It Myself, not someone's specific and unavoidably biased reading of it.

The video isn't about cultivating suspicion but cultivating appreciation for the skills of analytical/informative/opinion writing. So even when people aren't being lying grifters, it's just good to be your own critic and media analyst. Maybe you'll even contribute to that world yourself, or maybe you'll keep all your cool opinions in your heart and die, who cares. The point is that unlike some people, your opinions and words are your own. It's a beautiful thing to have your own creative voice.

[captain-astors]

Reading through Witch Hat Atelier, extremely slowly because the art is amazing and I have to stop to marvel at every chapter. Everything about this series is a delight thus far, I would definitely recommend it.

(This is a panel redraw from the first chapter. I'm only on the second.)

[prokopetz]

Developing the skill of briefly summarising your creative works isn't just good for posting them on fanfiction archives and itch.io, it's also a good way of cultivating creative discipline. If you can't explain in a few short sentences what a work's deal is, that may be a sign that you don't actually know where you're going with it yourself; composing that summary obliges you to come up with an answer to the question "what the fuck am I doing here?"

[shootingstarrfish]

silly chibi doodles for an assignment :) i had an excuse to draw some lads and i took it

almost done with uni yay!!!

[crowleys-dark-sunglasses]

Thinking about Neil from dead poets society and how in the beginning of the movie mr. keating does the iconic "poetry, beauty, romance, love. These are what we stay alive for"

Then at the end of the movie after Neil's dad stops him from acting, he dies. Neil didn't have love and he wasn't allowed to experience the poetry and beauty of his passion. So he didn't stay alive.

And I think it's what really makes this movie great, showing how without our creative passions, we're nothing but unhappy machines stuck in a never ending loop of monotony that isn't worth living in.

Which can also be applied to today and how everything is based on numbers, no big media company creates just to create anymore. They take numbers and just make something that The Numbers say will make them the most money.

[ladycatashtrophe]

"Let people enjoy things", "It's not that deep", "Stop being a hater", No.

You are capable of criticizing something and still enjoying it. Criticism should add to your enjoyment of the thing. Contextualizing and analyzing media is the only true sign that you enjoy it instead of just consume it. Stop selling the straggling iotas of your final brain cell to a fascio-capitalist system that wants to gorge you til you burst. Not consuming anything is better than blindly inhaling whatever is put in front of you without discretion.

Be an intellectual and have respect for yourself so you can have some sugary Wattpad fanfic and a Netflix reality TV show for dessert.

[xialing-gf]

comiccon next week 

[stil-lindigo]

your favourite arach-narchists 🕷️

prints

[crybaby-bkg]

asking nerd Bakugou to give you a ‘pearl necklace’ and he starts grumbling about you tryna drain him dry but instead of pulling out his cock, he pulls out his phone to actually search for a pearl necklace </3

and to both his surprise and embarrassment, his phone is quickly tossed away in favor of you showing him what you’re actually asking for. he’s not mad though—not when you end up looking so pretty covered in white, grinning, and asking for another necklace <3

[aroworlds]

This is something of a sequel to my original essay on being loveless.

It's also a discussion of the ways love is wielded against allo-aros, the a-spec community's ongoing conflation of love and attraction, and the impact allosexual aromanticism has on my lovelessness.

Because too often, unfortunately, I see loveless aromantic identity communicated and celebrated so as to exclude me, and other allosexual aros, from it.

I hope that's something we can begin to change this Aro Week.

[oooocleo]

Is there even a site left to post art? Seriously here i really like posting my artwork and creating a safe community why this app decides to follow down the rabbit hole of A! and ruin everything?

I want to be more hopeful that it won't last and get sued those who illegally use our pieces. :/

i think anything being posted publicly (bar perhaps on very niche places no one else will find u either) is probably getting scraped, which is supported by the kind of weak 'We Will Try To Stop Unauthorized Data Trawlers' lines we get fed - even sites that have explicit anti-AI stances like Pillowfort can't promise that ur images are fully protected

i'd assume paywalled sites like patreon/subscribestar offer a smidge of protection just bc the ai people don't want income to flow anywhere else than their own pockets? as for lawsuits, ye, i hope they tread on the toes of some other shitty corporation with an interest in protecting their intellectual property since they have the $ to throw at this problem

when all the platforms we post to are owned by corporations that are only interested in shortsighted financial gain/dont need to respect their userbase, this type of behaviour is to be expected... as i mentioned previously though, i have hope that the bubble will burst like it did w/ nfts, that people will realize theyre swallowing shit and it turns out not to be as profitable as the profiteers hoped (at which point theyll turn to the next exploitative grift)

[mysharona1987]

[casart]

Toy Castle au because why not!🧸🏰

[fruitsofhell]

I used to be one of those guys when I first joined the Kirby fandom, but everytime I hear a discussion of the series writing that starts with "So the Lore is InSaNe-" and not like, "Kirby has a fun writing style that takes advantage of its cute exterior to tell cool stories that reward player's curiosity and leave lots of room for imagination-" I cringe so goddamn hard.

I kinda just hate that people approach things that encourage investment when they don't expect it as inherently absurd. Like it is fun to joke about how absurd Kirby lore can be, but it really often comes with an air of disrespect or exhaustion rather than like, appreciation that these games are made by people who want to tell interesting stories when they could easily make as much money just making polished enough fluffy kiddy platformers. And when it's not met with exhaustion, it's met with - like I said before - that tone that it's stupid for a series like this TO have devs who care about writing stuff for it. Which is a whole other thing about people not respecting things made to appeal to kiddie aesthetic or tone.

Maybe the state of low-stakes YouTube video essays just blows cause people play up ignorance and disbelief for engagement, but like I STG I hear people use this tone for like actual narrative based games sometimes. Some people don't like... appreciate when a game is made by people who care a shitton in ways that aren't direct gameplay feedback. And they especially don't appreciate it when it comes from something with any sense of tonal dissonance intentional or not.

Anyways, I love games made by insane people. I love games made by teams who feel like they wanna make something work or say something so bad. I love that energy, especially when invested into something that could easily rest on its laurels or which obviously won't be taken seriously. I love this in a lot of classic campy 2000s games, I love this in insanely niche yet passionate fanworks, and I love it in the Kirby series and its writing. Can we please stop talking about it like it's an annoyance or complete joke?