Ian Stone, Doubting Thomas, oil on linen, 12x16 in, 2023
"If you know the painting by Caravaggio, Doubting Thomas, it was my direct inspiration for this piece.
A doubting Thomas is a skeptic who refuses to believe without direct personal experience. 50-60 years ago, it was not uncommon for people to think or believe that being gay was a phase or a mental illness or deviance in some shape or form. It's embarrassing that the same things are being said about trans people today."
Street Fighter IV: The Ties That Bind
having gay sex would have been less gay than this
This is the gayest shit I have ever seen in my entire life
This is the gayest
shit I have ever seen in
my entire life
Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.
there's something deeply gutting about being a writer right now. watching studio execs brag about starving people like you out of your very house just to not pay you anything above the pennies you currently make. watching some people cheer over AO3 being targeted for a DDOS attack. the complete lack of profitability of writing commissions or writing in general in transformative spaces, especially in contrast to fanart. the pivot of so many social media platforms to be video and image based near-exclusively.
I don't know. it just makes me sad to know that the hobby that kept me alive while growing up homeschooled with dial-up internet and local antenna TV... is only ever gonna be a side job with minimal engagement. I know this site is good about supporting libraries and the concept of books but, do me a favor? Reach out to a writer friend you know. Leave a comment on your last five read stories on your favorite website.
Tell us you care.
and like. this isn't a guilt trip on an individual level, I don't want anyone to read this and feel like they're not doing their part. it's not you. it's just the slow crush of watching capitalism crush one of the oldest art forms we've got as a species, deliberately and gleefully, when no one else really cared about it in the first place.
writing is by nature a slow, solitary work. I can't livestream my writing process, I can't make a time lapse video of me writing my novel. our faces aren't on the covers of our books hardly any amount of time. I see one read-more to a fanfic or AO3 link for every hundred pieces of fanart and twice as many memes. and parasocial relationships are so, so, so incredibly important in our society (not inherently evil, either) and it just.
Hurts. To already be small, and get stepped on anyway.
A note to all creatives:
Right now, you have to be a team player. You cannot complain about AI being used to fuck over your industry and then turn around and use it on somebody else’s industry.
No AI book covers. No making funny little videos using deepfakes to make an actor say stuff they never did. No AI translation of your book. No AI audiobooks. No AI generated moodboards or fancasts or any of that shit. No feeding someone else’s unfinished work into Chat GPT “because you just want to know how it ends*” (what the fuck is wrong with you?). No playing around with AI generated 3D assets you can’t ascertain the origin of. None of it. And stop using AI filters on your selfies or ESPECIALLY using AI on somebody else’s photo or artwork.
We are at a crossroad and at a time of historically shitty conditions for working artists across ALL creative fields, and we gotta stick together. And you know what? Not only is standing up for other artists against exploitation and theft the morally correct thing to do, it’s also the professionally smartest thing to do, too. Because the corporations will fuck you over too, and then they do it’s your peers that will hold you up. And we have a long memory.
Don’t make the mistake of thinking “your peers” are only the people in your own industry. Writers can’t succeed without artists, editors, translators, etc making their books a reality. Illustrators depend on writers and editors for work. Video creators co-exist with voice actors and animators and people who do 3D rendering etc. If you piss off everyone else but the ones who do the exact same job you do, congratulations! You’ve just sunk your career.
Always remember: the artists who succeed in this career path, the ones who get hired or are sought after for commissions or collaboration, they aren’t the super talented “fuck you I got mine” types. They’re the one who show up to do the work and are easy to get along with.
And they especially are not scabs.
*that’s not even how it ends that’s a statistically likely and creatively boring way for it to end. Why would you even want to read that.
yeah im “transitioning” *dissolves into tiny pieces as i click to the next slide*
Is there a transfem version?!?
ask and ye shall receive
Nonbinary version?
enjoy 💛🤍💜🖤
like status: sick 😎
I attack first. I draw my blade and take a swing. You look rather confused. This confusion is justified as we are 40 ft apart in the middle of a showdown.
"parry this you filthy casual"
wait, yeah, this is rad af
How are other people most likely to mess up your first name/the name you go by?
My name is often mispronounced
My name is often misspelled
My name is mispronounced and misspelled about equally often
My name is rarely mispronounced or misspelled
Reblog to help find out how many of us share in the Struggle.
Feel free to elaborate on your name situation in the notes, should you care to do so!
(Companion poll about surnames coming soon.)
