#oh! and the stickers are from etsy because all I can find near me are like children's stickers from walmart

[toyable]

what do you mean I have to clean all this up now

[lesbyeen]

bruh

The Redbubble Subreddit is one of the most disillusioned ‘not controversial’ subs I’ve ever fucking visited

So I recently restarted a new RedBubble account for Splatoon and furry stuff. I’ve had past issues with Nintendo striking some of my art (old, old stuff that was up for years), but I figured a new shot with parody art would help my case. Boy was I wrong. What I posted will never in a million years: be something the company ever directly makes (because they are jokes/parodies), be copied/stolen from their artists, or ever make me anywhere near enough money to harm the company themselves.

I take a trip over to the subreddit, check anything asking about copyright and oh my god. Somebody brings up that they had made some Pokemon fan art and had it struck and were curious as to why. The comments? HOLY shit. First one I see is: “make your own animals! Using a copyrighted character is exploitative”.

I want to make something abundantly clear: I’m not a copyright lawyer. But I have sat in on enough high level college digital media courses to know enough about Fair Use to get by on the interwebs (you talk about it A LOOOTT in this day and age). Making fan art and making a few stickers of a pre-existing character is not “exploitative”. I have some understanding for brands wanting to protect their IPs, I get it to an extent. Taking a pre-existing design and posting it everywhere and making a fuck ton of money on it is one thing. Making a parody piece with a Disney character is another. Regardless, fan art is not exploitative and I am disgusted that this subreddit said it was. The big corporation can deal with losing $3 a month to some poor kid who’s proud of their work and wants it as a sticker, one that has a design that they will never make. Or some poor artist trying to get by. A corporation does not need the protection of some saps on Reddit.

Fun fact: a lot of original character work DOES NOT SELL. Why? People don’t recognize them! People fucking want recognizable characters on their emotional support water bottle! There are some exceptions like big-time webcomics or web series (or even a design that just... takes off) that that RB artists makes, but 95% of people will never get that opportunity, and even then very few will be selling on RB where the markup is so low. Fanart not only sells, but people like it. Somebody’s fan art is not going to replace the original, which is one of the Fair Use rules. Uploading a doodle you did of Bulbasaur to RB is not the same as uploading a whole season of Indigo League to YouTube.

I would not be as bothered by this if the subreddit wasn’t riddled with people who think making fanart is horrible. It’s not. It keeps fandoms going. If Nintendo didn’t have a habit of locking their march in Japan THIS WOULDN’T BE AS MUCH OF A PROBLEM. I am so sick of trying to find Splatoon merch in the US that isn’t boring as fuck, so where do I go? ONLINE TO FIND COOL FANART. I also wouldn’t be as bothered if they didn’t pick and choose shit to take down. I tagged my parody piece with the same things as ACTUAL rips from the game and I am the one who gets it flagged for review.

I want to make this clear too, especially to young fan artists: FANART IS NOT THEFT. Making a couple pins of something and putting them on Etsy should never be considered theft unless you are stealing the design from something else. Is it? To some people. The brands do not need our protection, and honestly I think they need to let up on the reigns.

TLDR: fanart is not exploitative, companies need to chill the fuck out on striking parody pieces online, and the Redbubble subreddit is obnoxious as fuck

Anyway this got a little all over the place. I won’t be arguing with people in the comments over harmless fanart on RedBubble because it’s from a goddamn corporation, not some independent artist making a living off their work and having people take from them

[betweenthesteps-blog]

  I am back! After a 2-week illness break, I am finally back on my feet and here with a brand new setup! Who’s excited?!

Thank you so very much for your patience, love and support – I missed you!! Oh man, it feels so good to be back with my own 😉 Let’s see what is new!

      I am kicking off a new year with a brand new Leuchtturm1917 in black colour AND its new Navigator black cover! I LOVE this setup so much and you will see the whole thing in 2018 setup soon!!

This welcome page has been decorated by blending 3 distress inks – Mermaid Lagoon, Salty Ocean and Peacock Feathers (my very favourite!). I have used a blending tool, regular masking tape to protect the monthly calendar and a piece of laminated paper to help spreading the ink evenly on a sponge attached to a blending tool handle.

Monthly calendar will be probably used as a colour-coded guide to our blog posts & videos. You can also track your wellness on this front page, so it is right in front of your eyes!

    First spread is my old-time favourite, monthly log and goal setup. In January, we are keeping the monthly log at the top along with monthly tasks to the right. As always, we have four goal sections – Business, Personal, Home & Family, BTS Community. Now, Community can be also understood as a general public – you could set some community service goals here too! In addition to these goals, I have added Doing, Learning, Reading, Enjoying section as well – it will help with self-development and feels wonderful to look back at these pages for reference in the future.

Mini monthly calendar on the right page is for scheduling our blog posts & YouTube videos – it helps me to map out what topics I want to cover and when.

And in the right corner are upcoming tasks/events with a mini February calendar. I also left some space next to it for notes as I was missing this in December.

    You will be familiar with the Welness log that you can see on the right but there is a whole new page for keeping you on track with your monthly/yearly goals. Starting with Finances for keeping an eye on your financial situation and focusing on what will hugely affect your near future, proceeding to Open business from previous month/week, people or companies you want to Contact this month, to Obstacles that are awaiting you on the way to your accomplishments.

I love this horizontal monthly tracker that is available at our BTS Joy on paper Etsy shop. It is universal, so you can use it any time throughout the year (there is also a larger vertical version if you prefer that one), just write the day letters right above the date numbers like I did here. You can track up to 14 tasks and at the moment, I have 13 things that are different from what I have on a weekly tracker:

walking

yoga

meditation

doggies out

bed by 9pm – NEW

nails – NEW

goal progress – NEW

no spend – NEW

365 photo challenge – NEW

relax

KonMari something – NEW

backup website – NEW

organize photos – NEW

.

Below the tracker, there is our Between the steps Community growth log – I do have a separate business bullet journal where I keep all of these statistics but it was something that I was missing in my regular planner! I know that you love seeing our Community grow too and you will be able to view this from now on ♥

    Where am I winning page is where you can record your personal and professional wins! Nothing is too small as long as YOU see it as a win.

Monthly memory page has been combined with a mood tracker that is also available as a free printable in our Between the steps Community library for your personal use. It will look fantastic once coloured in! There are exactly 31 elements – stars, snow and trees – and I will be using my Tombow dual brush pens for colouring (no.020, 553, 451, 452, N89, N60). The moon itself can be coloured in however you like 😉

    There are four weeks in January and we are trying a new design (kind of). I wanted to spice up our traditional weekly layouts a bit so instead of using a regular black Pigma Micron for sketching the borders, I used a Tombow dual brush pen no. N60! Do you like it? The grey colour fits January perfectly, I think. We shall see how it works and I will probably use blue colour for the second week. Yes, sounds like a good plan. You will definitely be able to see the colour progress on our Instagram!

Things got moved around a bit, so weekly goals are now on the left side along with weekly tasks and a weekly tracker (check out the library). And on this tracker, you can find 12 things that I like to keep an eye on:

greet the day – NEW

skincare

wear make-up – NEW

smile & laugh

haircare

study/read

skill practise

healthy shake

unplug by 8pm – NEW

365 photo challenge – NEW

BTS Joy on paper

social media

.

The empty space on the right is for any notes, doodling, decorating, quotes, motivation, weekly schedule, reminders etc. And I have decorated the pages with a couple of stickers from the Winter Joy sticker sheet 🙂

Because I am using this notebook for 2018 planning only (journaling will be kept in a separate notebook), I designed the daily boxes so there is some space for weather icons and the word of the day (bottom grey line). It will look real pretty when filled in!

    And here is the last page of January setup – monthly review!

Every week, I will be asking myself a couple of questions – What worked well? How can I multiply these results? This is going to be very helpful and eye-opening at times. Have you tried this before? You know that I love questions and keep asking you every time. So, have you?

Projects completed and Still in the works are sections inspired by Your Best Year 2018 book written by Lisa Jacobs – I have built my 2018 setup on this book as there are many helpful hints and ropes you can use to achieve your goals, plus, I wanted to focus on one thing only and see how it works!

One of the questions to ask yourself when doing a monthly/weekly review is Am I closer to my annual goals? If not, why not? What is holding you back? How can you get closer? Can you reach out to somebody? Can you push yourself harder? How can you make progress more efficiently?

It’s a game of questions that I like to play and the challenge is to play it regularly. Face the truth, take responsibility. More in our 2017 planning series…

  February setup will follow right after these January pages. Like I said before, journaling will be kept separately. So, are you ready to start a new year?

  On YouTube → January 2018 PLAN with me

PLAN with me | JANUARY 2018 bullet journal setup I am back! After a 2-week illness break, I am finally back on my feet and here with a brand new setup!