Hello! I’m sorry that this has left you disappointed. If you are interested in an explanation (you might not be, which is fine) then here is one:
When I began sharing my work online years ago I was unemployed and couldn’t work due to my illness. Posting drawings and writing on my blog played a huge part in my survival during this time, and I am lucky that I had such a positive response from people like yourself, it was what kept me going and motivated to hold it together. (Side note: The main reason I deleted the Head Burp blog wasn’t about monetising words, but because there was information/writing that I no longer felt comfortable being in the public forum.)
As the years have gone on I am able to manage my illnesses better and now have longer periods of stability that allow me to work. I am trying to support myself as a freelance artist/illustrator/whatever you’d like to call it. Working freelance in a creative profession is not easy or particularly well-paid a lot of the time. It is very hard to earn a consistent income. I have chosen to make this my job, so yes it is on me to try and make it work, but I don’t believe this is a choice that I or anyone else should feel guilty for.
I am on a learning curve with everything at the moment when it comes to being an adult, including work. I might not be getting it all right, but I am doing my best to find a balance. I still love being able to share work on social media; It is important to me that people can continue to see as much of it as possible for free. I also want to be able to support myself financially. Just as other people who get up and do a job each day, I would like to be paid for my time, my energy, and my work.
If you really feel that artists putting monetary value on a skill is selling-out then I can’t argue with that, but I would urge you to consider that we face the same rent/food prices/living costs as everyone else. The reason why so many artists have fallen into what you call this ‘shitty fame pit’ of Patreon is simply because we want to live independently, buy food to eat, have money to pay bills and just exist in the world. As romantic an idea as it is, we can’t live off exposure, reblogs and likes alone.
Personally speaking, setting up a Patreon was actually quite a difficult decision that I put a lot of thought into and have tried to make it a fun and fair addition to what I will continue to post online. I am fully aware that this is not something everyone will be interested in, and I am not forcing anyone to sign up to it, at all. Besides, I haven’t moved all my work behind a paywall or anything, I am still very much here/on instagram etc posting drawings frequently.
Anyway… that’s my bit.
Thank you for supporting my work thus far. I’m not too worried about changing your mind on this one if it’s made up, but I hope this gives you some food for thought when considering the way I and other artists whose work you enjoy operate.
Start out perfect and don’t change a thing. Always accentuate your best features by pointing at them. And conceal your flaws by sucker punching anyone who has the audacity to mention them.
Never too old to learn from the Muppets.
And this:
“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and it may be necessary from time to time to give a stupid or misinformed beholder a black eye.” – Miss Piggy
My desire to not deal with people I think are unnecessarily negative and inflammatory is not a desire to only deal with people I agree with. My mutuals and I disagree all the fucking time holy hell this place is so annoying.
Also like… who cares if you (general you) only wanna deal w/ people you agree with on fuckin tumblr of all places? Like it’s your life! This is the web! Block whoever you want! Nobody is entitled to your time or consideration goddamn if you don’t wanna deal with someone don’t deal with them you don’t need a reason you’re not committing some moral sin by surrounding yourself w/ people you know you’re not going to be regularly in conflict with. it doesn’t mean you’re incapable of handling conflict or anything it just means maybe you don’t fucking want to in a space where it’s SO easy to avoid
This is a good point. I’m just so tired of people acting like you have to talk with everyone on here to understand their point before you block them. It’s not weak. It’s an act of self care because conflict on here ends up being such a huge waste of time and energy for me.
Some people use this site to debate and that’s fine. That’s not how I use it at all. It’s a hobby for me. it’s a place I go to have fun. It is entirely my prerogative to block anyone who is getting in the way of that for any reason.
Something I’ve been wanting to talk about for a while now, as I’ve seen it affect other content creators… We might advocate for positivity, but that doesn’t make us invincible 😔Please be mindful of what you send to people you follow.
(I am reposting this from twitter, I don’t know if OP has it posted on another tumblr, if so, I will delete this and reblog from OP.)
It’s a powerful message and a good reminder, especially for blogs like mine that advocate for positivity. I have my moments, like any other mortal human being. I stress, I make mistakes, and I apologize. I try to make peace when possible.
While this blog advocates positivity, it is run by a flawed human being who makes mistakes and is not a walking Google search bar, not Siri, not an ethereal incarnation of constant positivity.
“We’re women, we’re human beings too, and we’re allowed to be as upset, mad or grumpy as we wish to be, for as long as we want.”
Hey, everyone! Today, we’re going to be talking about feeling shame and guilt in fandom.
A few quick points:
No, actually, you don’t have to hide liking certain ships from your friends. You can if you want, but that feeling of guilt and shame that you feel when someone mocks something you like, or worse, calls it problematic, isn’t something that you have to feel. You don’t have to break things off with your current friends, but please know that you CAN find friends that won’t judge you for liking things they don’t.
We all ship ships because we read fics/metas/hcs for those ships and see reflections of what we need, want, crave, envy, hate, and fear at that moment in our lives. Celebrate your connection to that ship! Celebrate your connection to others who ship the same things! When you find fellow shippers, you’ve found so many other people who might also be going through a lot of similar things as you in their lives right now. That’s rare, out there in the real world! And it’s actually one of the coolest things about fandom.
The same goes for kinks. You don’t owe it to anyone to feel bad, guilty, ashamed, mortified, or self-conscious about your kinks. YES, you shouldn’t rub your kinks in the faces of people who are uncomfortable with them bc that’s a matter of mutual respect, but if someone makes you feel like you’re not allowed to post or talk about it in your own space (your blog), that’s not healthy. It’s unfair to you.
I understand wanting to hide certain things about yourself (liking Sheith, liking noncon, etc.) because you’re afraid of retaliation from antis. Yup. They’re unpredictable and scary little buggers. And controlling your happiness through feelings of fear and shame is every bit a part of their plan. But please remember that antis’ intimidating behavior says everything about the sort of people they are. It doesn’t mean their victims are bad people who deserve vitriol and punishment. If you’ve had scary interactions with them, you’re not a bad person, and I’m sorry you were made to feel that way. If you don’t want to attract their ire, I understand. But that doesn’t mean that the fandom content you like has to become “guilty pleasures” that you’re ashamed for even when you’re indulging in it privately. Resist treating your heart the way an anti would treat your heart.
Life is short. Indulge in what you like. Avoid what you don’t like. Listen to outside opinions when you want to learn and grow, and close yourself off when those opinions are trying to hurt you. There’s obviously more shades of grey to everything than just that, but you’re not hurting anyone by liking the ships you like, reading the fics you read, and making your blog a space that’s perfectly tailored to your happiness.
I think that’s all I have for now. I hope you’re having a good day. 🙂
As per your issue, the thing is: you can’t. You can’t convince them. Fandom wank would have already ended if antis were open to read sources, understand laws, understand nuance, understand the “mind yo business”, follow the “live and let live” rule etc. You’ll see discourse blogs go on infinite hiatus or downright step down from the wankery not because they have been ‘defeated’ but because they are exhausted of repeating the same thing over and over again.
Antis don’t listen.
Which is why the point for you is not to make sure antis can’t talk shit about you, the point is for you to build confidence and security so that you may roll your eyes at antis because you know you’re not doing anything harmful, you know yourself, you know the law of your country, and you know that fiction affects reality in every way but how antis say it does. Haters gonna hate, you can’t change this.
Be sure of yourself, and when you’re tired rest, and when you feel alone look around in your community, and believe in yourself.
I just truly believe this to be the universal experience of all Anne Rice fans, and some of us been up and down the lollercoaster a few times so far, and some of us haven’t had to deal with it yet. AND I PROMSE ALL THE LITTLE SUMMER CHILDREN, IT’S COMING.
She’s a divisive and controversial writer for sure, on a lot of layered meta levels that aren’t just like mainstream casual normies thinking the books are scandalous or something. Tumblr is obviously a place where injustices aren’t ignored and it takes about five minutes of browsing to start finding the deeper readings of her work, the bad topics and sketchy opinions, etc etc. It’s so easy to just enjoy her work on the surface and it’s just such a fucking mess when you look closer.
AND I MEAN THAT’S THE THING? I know people get suuuuuuper salty about Anne Rice and it’s always kind of crushing when people learn about the fandom history but like YALL I WAS THERE, I’M OVER IT LOL. I had the salty Anne Rice phase already and it took me like 4 years to bring myself to read Blood Canticle cause I was like So Done With Her Shit at that point.
Are these books good and interesting enough to keep me this occupied on their own? Probably not. But they were really special to me growing up and I found cool fandom people and made genuinely awesome friends here so it’s become a weird hobby to have. I’M STUCK HERE NOW.
I get the AR hate, I really do. I really, really do. I get the whole “omg I waited for the new book and it was about bird aliens” devastation. I REALLY DO. But we all go through this if you stick around for too long. I went through it already, it’s out of my system. I’m done being pissy about it. (tbh I went through this when I read Merrick the first time and I was like wtf I thought this was gonna be an epic crossover with Rowan getting into some shit and instead we’re reading about David fucking some chick in a cave what IS THIS. And that was like 15 years ago LMAO.)
Some people interact with media by criticizing and dissecting and that’s super awesome, other people want to be brainless and just dick around and make memes. I have a stressful life and I deal with heavy shit pretty often so I’m not here to like sling negativity in any form, that’s just not how I like to use my energy and free time. It doesn’t make it less valuable, it’s just not my thing. I put the time in with salty AR years, I’m done, I’m just here to laugh now. AND LAUGH I DO.
AND LIKE IF THERE’S ONE THING I CAN SAY? A PIECE OF ADVICE TO THE NEWBS WHO HAVEN’T GONE THROUGH IT? Stop having expectations. Read enough AR to see that she’s fucking whacky af. Read Taltos. Read the werewolf book. When the new VC comes out, go in expecting that writer. Don’t go in expecting QOTD 2. If shredding books is fun for you, by all means! Knock yourself out! There will be plenty to shred! But if you’re here for fun just go in for fun. It’s lulzy as fuck if you don’t take it too seriously.
did i write this post in my sleep!
#PREACH (Um I think I co-wrote this w/ nightislandofficial and monstersinthecosmos in my sleep, too)
This is extremely true. Everyone that goes through abuse is different and has their mental health impacted differently, and your feelings on x are not necessarily correct for everyone despite being valid.
Different people can handle different things, and if you can’t handle/enjoy something, that does not mean that those who can and do have to cater to you beyond tagging things properly. This is especially important now that Tumblr has finally added the blacklisting feature. It is imperative that YOU take the initiative to make yourself feel comfortable and safe, because this is a SHARED SPACE.
my fave thing is when when women in fandom are like UGH BUT I CANT RELATE TO F/F PAIRINGS BC IM NOT A LESBIAN
funnily enough you’re not a gay man either yet here we are
this tea is fucking SCALDING
actually this tea is cold af because hmmmm I’ll tell you a secret
I’m a cishet woman, therefore I find *men* attractive, same as all cis*het* women
a *gay* man finds *men* attractive
therefore since I’m not a gay man but I like the same things a gay man likes I find it way easier to write fic about a dude who likes a dude because I can imagine *why* he’d be into a dude and with a bit of that thing named *empathy/trying to imagine how it feels to be your character* I can work out the rest and I can relate and also I suppose I’d imagine how things work in the bedroom since both me and my character like having men inside it
meanwhile I absolutely am not romantically or sexually attracted to women and therefore to me it’s a lot harder to write f/f unless it’s a ship I like or it’s canon and I have material to work on because I really *cannot relate* to the concept of finding women attractive *and* since fanfic is for *fun* and I’m not writing a book I am in no way shape or form obligated to write f/f fanfic just because it’s about women and I’m a woman, and I’d find it way harder to imagine why a lesbian would be into another woman physically (because I’m not one) (not because it’s WRONG obviously)
therefore sorry but a heterosexual woman, when *shipping things* or writing *fanfic* in which A is attracted to B will find m/m or f/m *always* more relatable than f/f. a bisexual man would most probably relate to a lesbian on that level more than *I* would, because a bisexual dude would definitely want to fuck women and I wouldn’t and he’d definitely know how to make love to one woman better than I could imagine since I doubt I’ll ever have the chance or the inclination
I mean, it’d be nice if y’all actually thought about fairly obvious things before *always* somehow making fun of *women in fandom* who in 95% of the time happen to be straight because of course it’s the only typology of woman that is *always* good to laugh at (except for bi women in m/f rships who then aren’t bi anymore), but what do I even ask out of this website? ¯_(ツ)_/¯
(ps: not wanting to fuck women doesn’t mean that you will NEVER want to write f/f or I wouldn’t have written the only literal explicit fic on ao3 for a canon ff ship in a show no one on tumblr ever heard of THANKFULLY because y’all would hate it, but putting it like this is really fucking dumb because you’re mixing up same-sex attraction with *the sex you’re actually attracted to* I mean ¯_(ツ)_/¯ ¯_(ツ)_/¯ ¯_(ツ)_/¯ )
hey shut up, your hetero opinion actually isn’t relevant here
So what about the opinion of a woman in a relationship with another woman? Relevant enough? Because hey, everything @janiedean said is true. But actually thinking about what she said would require you to examine your own motivations and biases, and that…well. You seem unwilling.
(Screeching about how I’m not queer enough, have internalised homophobia, or some other reason why my opinion is still not relevant in 3, 2, 1…)
I don’t have a well-articulated way of putting this yet but so much anti rhetoric strikes me as deeeeeeply sexphobic?
Like….. sexual attraction isn’t inherently predatory. Arousal is a largely involuntary process with no moral implications. Getting aroused by weird, benign, even horrifying things is a normal part of being human, and if it’s not distressing to you or causing you to act in antisocial ways then it’s not even a little bit an issue.
The idea that being aroused by another human is inherently objectifying of that human is some straight-up 18th century Kant philosophy. It was predicated on a lot of ideas we now know aren’t really true, and are deeply sexist besides. And they’re still just as wrong and sexist now as they were then? Sexual arousal isn’t a prequel to violence, attraction isn’t objectification, can we please all just in general stop being so afraid of other people’s and our own sexual feelings and start figuring out how to be accepting and positive about them in a way that benefits everyone
I-want-my-IWTV 