I'm a Sri Lankan desi by way of Dubai by way of Minnesota.
things that are actual RL facts:
- tyler posey is not white-passing
- not unless you have photoshop
- and tons of hours to spare
- so shut the fuck up abt it
i mean??? how would you even think he is
look at that goddamn face
not only is he not white-passing
but the sun comes out of his pores
Plus if you think he has any sorta privilege, pls let us introduce you to the TW fandom that tries to erase him from his own fucking show.
For all the women I have loved who were dragged through the mud
I’ve read a lot of great essays about how fandom is female-majority and creates a female gaze and a safe space for women and etc. But spend five minutes in fandom and you’ll have an unsettling question.
Why does a female-majority, feminist culture hate female characters so much?
It’s not a question of if it happens. You know it does. You can go into any fandom and see it. Some fandoms are worse than others, but it’s always there. Scroll down the Tumblr tag for any show, movie, book, comic, whatever, and you’ll see nothing but love for the men, and a lot of unjustified hate for the women, maybe with a few defenders here and there insisting on their love for the women in the face of all that hate.
To be clear, we’re not talking about female villains. Male villains get just as much hate. It’s fine if you hate Bellatrix Lestrange or Dolores Umbridge, you’re supposed to. (I personally stan for Bella, but I realize that wasn’t the authorial intent.) This is about people hating Hermione, Ginny and Luna, but loving Harry, Ron and Neville. This is about how ambiguous male antiheroes, like Snape, Zuko, or pretty much any male vampire protagonist can get away with walking that fine line between good and evil and not only remain sympathetic, but be even more beloved for how ~tortured~ he is, but when a female character is morally gray that bitch has to die.
So you can’t tell me it’s okay that you hate Sansa because you also hate Joffrey and he’s a dude. They’re not comparable. It isn’t even comparable if you pick a female antihero. Let’s do this apples to apples, here.
We all know that fandom does this. We all know that it’s fucked up and symptomatic of internalized sexism. What’s really fucking weird about it, though, is that the women doing this hating often aren’t ignorant. These are feminists. These are women who can go on meta-analyses of the writing. Some will hide behind pseudo-feminist reasons for their hate—oh, it’s the writing, we just aren’t given strong female characters! (I saw this used for the women of AtLA: Katara, Toph, Azula, et al. This was about when I just backed away slowly because I know a lost cause when I see it.) I’ve seen women who denied being sexist, but couldn’t name a single female character they liked. And it’s always that the female characters aren’t good enough, even when they obviously have a double standard, and they’re measuring women on an impossible scale full of contradictions and no-win binds, while the men are just embraced and loved pretty much for existing.
The reaction nearly every time one of these women is called out is not to say, “Huh, you may have a point, I should examine the way I judge and process women’s actions more closely,” but an insistence of their feminism, followed by a more detailed description of why that particular woman is terrible and she hates her, as if the whole point were not that fandom is already oversaturated with that kind of hate, and as if the person doing the calling out were not already 110% done with that bullshit.
Particularly telling is that male-dominated corners of fandom do not have this problem. They fetishize, they objectify, they ignore. They don’t hate like this.
We know it happens. What I want to know is WHY.
Theories follow below the cut.
This is a great analysis, however we also need to consider race, and how women of color are relegated to a special kind of hate/erasure/marginalization in fandom. Katara fans are constantly fighting her whitewashing in fanart. Ask any Guinevere fan how the Merlin fandom treated her character compared to Morgana’s. Ask Bonnie Bennett fans, or Tara Thornton fans, or Martha Jones fans. These women are doubly hated on my fandom for being women and of color (see how the Dr.Who fandom fawns over Rose while contriving the most flimsy excuses for hating on Martha). Oh, and then there’s ‘Glee’ too.
i see too much stanning meta that realizes on she’s strong, she’s not helpless and weak, etc.
but it should be okay to be helpless and weak. it should be okay not to be strong.
it’s okay to be saved. it’s okay to be a damsel in distress. it’s okay to not be one too. it’s okay to be hard and bitter, and it’s okay to be soft and bitter. it’s okay to wait and it’s okay to say fuck that. it’s okay to forgive and it’s okay to not forgive and hold onto that grudge until the grave. it’s okay to want power and want to rule and it’s okay to not want that. it’s okay to want to be human and it’s okay to want to be a monster.
etc.
Yes^^^ The bolded. I’ve noticed this a lot especially in the OuAT fandom and the GoT fandom with Aurora and Sansa, and further back in the Merlin fandom with Guinevere. It’s ok to be rescued by the people you love! It’s ok to lean on people, to cry on their shoulders and rely on their support. It’s ok to want this. It’s ok to feel scared and helpless and cry about it. That’s what I do about certain things I encounter in my life! But this doesn’t mean I’m also not interesting, funny, artistic, sexy, what-have-you. Like you said we really need to deconstruct how we validate our fave characters.
I find it more helpful to evaluate them from an ethical standpoint (that’s just me, I know people don’t always adhere to an ethics framework and again GoT comes to mind and that’s ok too). But the reason I’m drawn to characters like Guinevere, Scott McCall and Sansa is that, even with their desperate situations and their lack of power, they try to avoid causing unjustified harm to others. For me personally, that’s the most important ethical framework there is. Now we can talk about why certain characters are more likely to adopt this framework, why they reject it or why they’ve been excluded from it by various textual and meta-textual forces, but this whole idea of a character having to justify their existence through a flawed and ableist notion of ‘survival’ and ‘independence’ has really, really got to go.
No but THIS* is still rankling with me so here goes ARRRRRGH I’m so sick of fandom reducing queerness to white cis men (who aren’t even canonically gay!) and talking loud about “queer representation” when their idea of queerness is 50 shades of oatmeal in gay monogamous relationships, HULLO these are not the only types of queer relationships possible in fact there’s a whole universe of possibilities that you’re ignoring and shoving aside for the sake of your ~special white dudes~. All queerness isn’t manifested sexually, and not all sexual relationships are romantic, and sometimes platonic relationships are queer and sometimes a romantic attraction isn’t sexual these are all valid identities and relationships people have that you’re squashing with your over-indulgence of ONE kind of queer relationship that’s also the most invested in systems of power like whiteness, maleness and cis-supremacy. Also queerness for a lot of us isn’t just about who we’re fucking or who we want to fuck although sex is a radical act and celebrating our right to sexual pleasure is hella radical especially those of us whose bodies are considered expendable BUT queerness is also about an analysis and a way of seeing and being that doesn’t give a fuck about arbitrary boundaries whether those boundaries enforce race, class or gender systems and basically queerness is way way WAY more than Johnlock and Sterek and Merthur and Castiel so could you please stop with your faux, HRC-style ‘inclusion’ rhetoric and specify that the only kind of queerness you care about is the one where you get to see two conventionally attractive white cis men get naked with each other arrrrrgh <rant over>
*this ran’t isn’t aimed at the OP of that fanfic post btw
Whitewashing is uncool, and if you end up doing it, then you just apologize and work harder to actually find lighting references.
Maybe fix the white-washed piece.
I don’t understand why defending your art takes precedence over minimizing an entire group of people.
I agree with everything, but that piece is pretty old. Why should she go back to fix it?. It’s done and over. She has learned her lesson. Can this die down now?
Because reblogging and laughing about THIS is clear proof that an important lesson has been learned.
Phemyscira: irresistible-revolution: natsume64: Thanks to all the instigators...
Thanks to all the instigators about white-washing Katara in artists artwork, in the Zutara tag. You really made your point known. Mati- Chan is thinking about stopping her work all together because your complaints… You try completing a finished…
I don’t feel like mati-chan was whitewashing anything; looking through her (wonderful) art, all of her artwork portrays katara as brown.
I understand lighting, I really do. I’m dark skinned, but if you look at my avatar right now, I look a lot lighter than I am. It wasn’t intentional, it was just the room. So I get it, believe me I do.
But to tell the people who are pointing out that Katara may be whitewashed that they should shut up is just rude.
POCs are already under represented in the media. To get someone like Katara, who is a darker skinned woman and who kicks ass is refreshing and rare. Whenever I see artwork of her lightened (on purpose, because let’s face it. Lighting will only get you so far. You can still tell I’m brown, for example. My tinge can’t be taken away no matter how bright the lighting) I scroll past it. I don’t want to see another piece of work with her as light skinned, because that happens enough where I come from.
Shadeism in South Asia, I’m looking at you.
These people may be sensitive, but they definitely have a right to express their opinion. Where they’re coming from is understandable. It would be terrible if mati-chan stopped drawing, especially because I don’t believe she was in the wrong, but that doesn’t make their point null and void.
Some of us (for good or worse) are over protective of the few brown skinned women we get. Sometimes that doesn’t come off in the best way to our favorite artists, and most likely, we don’t mean to hurt anyone. But I think it’s important to point out that our point still does remain the same, and whitewashing should be given utmost importance to fix.
BOLDED
More thoughts on fandom social conservatism (re: Attack the Block)
The way that Attack the Block hasn’t permeated the Internet/”fandoms” in the way that a tight, cool, fun cult SF film should reveals a lot about the thinking of many consumers of that genre.
The main thing is a big fat vein of social conservatism, which is more of a feature of Science Fiction/Fantasy texts (and enthusiasts) than many might admit. The response to this film’s main characters—poor, mostly black inner city youths—is often couched in the language of ghettoisation. Here’s two comments on the film’s YouTube trailer, both posted in the last week:
“if the main protagonists were not cool gangbang badass kids the movie would be worth a 8/10 for me but in this state I just cant bare to give it some solid score”
“Can’t stand chavs/chav talk lol, sole reason I avoided this film”
This wholesale dismissal of the film because of this feature of its script—which the director developed by spending months working with young people who lived in these areas of London, and which the spectacularly talented but mostly non-professional-actor cast also helped to develop—is both depressing and somewhat alarming.
Note here that the resistance to the film’s dialogue is expressed using off-the-peg cultural stereotypes (“gangbang”, “chav”) that are regularly used to dehumanise and dismiss the social legitimacy of large sections of (already marginalised) people. They’re not people, they’re gangbangers, they’re chavs; listen to how they talk. Ugh lol i can’t believe someone made a movie about them.
There’s also an enormous double standard going on here regarding the way that people perceive the sympathetic nature of “morally ambiguous” characters. There’s no getting past the fact (and nor should there be, necessarily) that the main characters in Attack the Block are petty criminals, who mug people and threaten them in the street. But they are also complex, human characters capable of taking responsibility for their actions and making difficult, courageous decisions (indeed, that journey is one of the story arcs of the movie). And yet, they’re just gangbangers; they’re just chavs.
But I’m willing to be that a lot of people who dismiss Attack the Block on this basis are the same people who praise to the skies the character of The Joker, or Moriarty, or some other cartoon (but much more murderous) villain. So it seems that moral ambiguity and criminal characters are fine, as long as that ambiguity is telegraphed in huge primary colours with clown makeup and campy, OTT performances by actors who are already established as respectable and mainstream.
I have more thoughts about this but I’m struggling to articulate them right now.
Pricelists Industry vs Fandom.
Finally made.
If anyone would care to donate a coloured comic page for the comic industry standard list I’m willing to accept one and will give credit c8 I would’ve made one if I had an example but I don’t -A-
But yes that’s off my chest.
Of course this is based off my own browsing over price lists and how I work unfortunately my commissioner homie went idle so I can’t confirm the most vs the least one can spend.
I’ve only found one artist thus far that charges nearly as close to industry standard. Even then it’s under the standard. As far a I’m concerned anyone under the standard shouldn’t have complaints about expensive art. Fandom average is hardly one you can live by.
Would you like to get paid $30 for 3-7 days worth of work?
Yeah hey, everyone look at this. This is what EVERY artist should be able to charge, even if just the lower rungs.
Gosh
ahahah ok, this actually made me remember one moment that happened on a local Con this summer, we were doing commissions there, and we were drawing A5 format chibies for 5LT(2$) they were lined, colored and looking all nice and this girl comes to us asking about prices and we tell her that chibi drawing is 2$ and she said: wow that`s too expensive and walked away.
ahahahah if only she saw this post :”D
mandatory reblog
seriously though. I sell my stuff for so cheap when I could get away with much more. Mostly because my friends are either highschoolers or college students and I can understand not having access to or having the money in general, but I’ve sold a print of an unfinished piece for $175 before to an artist/art collector friend, so I know my stuff is worth or close to being worth industry standard prices.
Its hard to see people whine at me that $10 is too expensive for a fully shaded single body when i should be selling them for more 8( But I know a lot of other people enjoy the prices because they can actually buy stuff at that price, so it’s worth it for them more than anything.
Pay attention.
PLEASE spread this message guys….
I’m not sure what message this is meant to spread. I mean, I love all my artist friends, I think you’re all INSANELY TALENTED and deserve ALL THE MONEY AND PRAISE.
But the reason the fandom standard is so much lower is that your fandom cannot afford the industry standard. Maybe one day when they pay me to photoshop or write RP I’ll be able to afford $400 for a drawing of my favorite character :/
So we, the artists, are expected to lower our prices? Commissions are /my/ only source of income, I expect anyone who commissions me to respect that. Just like an employer, the commissioner should understand that this isn’t just something that takes five minutes of my time & is no big deal. When I spend hours upon hours doing something for someone else, as a job, I demand respect.
Oh, hello idea of minimum wage. How are you doing today?
Sorry if you can’t afford my art. (Although, myy prices are horribly low, and it makes me cry. Eugh. Which is why I feel so strongly about this.) But art IS a commodity. Like.. expensive cars. We don’t /need/ them to survive. We buy them as a source of enjoyment, and sometimes as a way to flaunt our monetary worth.
Sorry, not sorry. :/No, I definitely don’t mean that you should be sorry, or that you shouldn’t be respected. I do respect you. TONS. I’m not even sure where that came into the conversation, to be honest.
All I mean is that if you are an artist doing commissions and you were to set your prices to those of the industry standards, chances are good that you’d get less work, because the people who really want your commodities (fandom) can’t afford to pay that much, especially for something they don’t ‘need’, as you said.
Reblogging for discussion. As a writer I’m in a different situation, so I won’t derail the discussion. All I can add is, there’s a reason I don’t commission art (I make requests and suggestions sometimes which some of my friends generously fulfill if they have the time and inclination and for which I’m eternally grateful, but it’s certainly not something I expect them to do or bug them about) and it’s because I know I can’t afford to pay them what their work deserves. I hope I can someday.
If none of you fanartist read fanfic, or watch fanvids or read meta, use unofficial fanforums then please disregard everything that I am about to say.
The aforementioned are just as much work, often more and not a one of these things is paid. I suspect that legally you all can’t even sell your work, but you do and you are heavily praised.People love their fanfic, its convienent to have forums to gather in, but they want some visual shit and ya’ll can make money off some shit you can’t actually legally sell, your images can get hundreds of thousands of reblogs, etc…
So while you over here whining about the fact that you’re not getting paid much for commisions or wanting folks to come up with money they don’t have to commision your work think about that and all the other fandom things that you get for free. If you want the industry standard go to the industry.
And if you feel like you’re not getting paid enough stop using every other fandom service for fucking free and then maybe your fandom would have some money to pay you a high ass commision. But you’re not going to do that of course.
Shit I know we all gotta live, but damn! And if any of my artist friends (Ash) have some other things to advise me of, if I’m missing something important feel free. You do not exist in a vaccuum, you exist in a fandom eco-system and you cain’t get what ain’t there.
I just commented on this actually, and tumblr seems to have eaten my response to you. But I have a couple issues with what you’re saying here. Because fan work =/= commission work. I definitely get that industry standard prices is too much for private work, as I said in my other reblog. But… Fan work you are doing for yourself first and foremost. You are doing it on your terms, you define everything you do about it, and you’re choosing to put it out for free. Commissioned work you are doing ON SOMEONE ELSE’S TERMS. The commissioner defines it, the commissioner decides what it is and what needs revising etc. and I’m not talking about critique either, this is specific parameters the artist must work in that completely removes it from being a fan work for pure enjoyment. Im not saying fan work is not work, but it is not the same as doing commissioned work, because its not for you personally. Also, a couple other things: Private Commissions done within a fandom are perfectly legal *because* they are not being printed and commissions done within a fandom do not necessarily mean they are being done of copyrighted work. (Original character concepts commissioned by people I meet in fandoms is 98% of the private commission work I receive) Lastly breaking into the industry is really fucking hard. Like really. I know, I am trying, but the loopholes one needs to jump through include paying hundreds of dollars for databases of addresses because art directors do not give out that information for free, and paying more money to make printed material of your work to mail to these art directors. Which does not guarantee a job at all, it simply gives you the *chance* that art director *might* notice you and decide to hire you *one day* for *one job*. Even then the industry is taking a huge hit because of the economy, just like everywhere else, and thus it’s even harder to break into unless you are horribly underpaid, yay. So private commissioned work is accessible, way more doable, and certainly within an organized community like fandoms much easier to gain interest from. That is not to say I agree with expecting industry standard prices from private commissioners. As I said in my previous reblog it doesn’t make sense because those are standards set for companies, and printing plus mass distribution rights. I do however think it’s a fair complaint that artists within fandoms doing private commissions are sometimes berated for charging something even close to minimum wage for commissions. A decent hourly wage should be affordable for people seeking out commissioned artwork, it’d be a reasonable expectation.
Reblogging for discussion.
Pricelists Industry vs Fandom.
Finally made.
If anyone would care to donate a coloured comic page for the comic industry standard list I’m willing to accept one and will give credit c8 I would’ve made one if I had an example but I don’t -A-
But yes that’s off my chest.
Of course this is based off my own browsing over price lists and how I work unfortunately my commissioner homie went idle so I can’t confirm the most vs the least one can spend.
I’ve only found one artist thus far that charges nearly as close to industry standard. Even then it’s under the standard. As far a I’m concerned anyone under the standard shouldn’t have complaints about expensive art. Fandom average is hardly one you can live by.
Would you like to get paid $30 for 3-7 days worth of work?
Yeah hey, everyone look at this. This is what EVERY artist should be able to charge, even if just the lower rungs.
Gosh
ahahah ok, this actually made me remember one moment that happened on a local Con this summer, we were doing commissions there, and we were drawing A5 format chibies for 5LT(2$) they were lined, colored and looking all nice and this girl comes to us asking about prices and we tell her that chibi drawing is 2$ and she said: wow that`s too expensive and walked away.
ahahahah if only she saw this post :”D
mandatory reblog
seriously though. I sell my stuff for so cheap when I could get away with much more. Mostly because my friends are either highschoolers or college students and I can understand not having access to or having the money in general, but I’ve sold a print of an unfinished piece for $175 before to an artist/art collector friend, so I know my stuff is worth or close to being worth industry standard prices.
Its hard to see people whine at me that $10 is too expensive for a fully shaded single body when i should be selling them for more 8( But I know a lot of other people enjoy the prices because they can actually buy stuff at that price, so it’s worth it for them more than anything.
Pay attention.
PLEASE spread this message guys….
I’m not sure what message this is meant to spread. I mean, I love all my artist friends, I think you’re all INSANELY TALENTED and deserve ALL THE MONEY AND PRAISE.
But the reason the fandom standard is so much lower is that your fandom cannot afford the industry standard. Maybe one day when they pay me to photoshop or write RP I’ll be able to afford $400 for a drawing of my favorite character :/
So we, the artists, are expected to lower our prices? Commissions are /my/ only source of income, I expect anyone who commissions me to respect that. Just like an employer, the commissioner should understand that this isn’t just something that takes five minutes of my time & is no big deal. When I spend hours upon hours doing something for someone else, as a job, I demand respect.
Oh, hello idea of minimum wage. How are you doing today?
Sorry if you can’t afford my art. (Although, myy prices are horribly low, and it makes me cry. Eugh. Which is why I feel so strongly about this.) But art IS a commodity. Like.. expensive cars. We don’t /need/ them to survive. We buy them as a source of enjoyment, and sometimes as a way to flaunt our monetary worth.
Sorry, not sorry. :/No, I definitely don’t mean that you should be sorry, or that you shouldn’t be respected. I do respect you. TONS. I’m not even sure where that came into the conversation, to be honest.
All I mean is that if you are an artist doing commissions and you were to set your prices to those of the industry standards, chances are good that you’d get less work, because the people who really want your commodities (fandom) can’t afford to pay that much, especially for something they don’t ‘need’, as you said.
Reblogging for discussion. As a writer I’m in a different situation, so I won’t derail the discussion. All I can add is, there’s a reason I don’t commission art (I make requests and suggestions sometimes which some of my friends generously fulfill if they have the time and inclination and for which I’m eternally grateful, but it’s certainly not something I expect them to do or bug them about) and it’s because I know I can’t afford to pay them what their work deserves. I hope I can someday.
Okay I’m supposed to be asleep right now but I just want to say…
Industry standard is literally what you’re supposed to charge COMPANIES.
If you have a copy of the graphic artist guild’s price guidelines (which is considered the guide for industry standard prices) you will see prices are raised or lowered depending on the size of the company, distribution of the image, and rights they are paying for, even aside from what the actual image being purchased is.
That is not to say that people should charge less. By ALL means many artists charge way less than they should, because by all fair accounts we should be able to charge a decent hourly wage for our work AT THE VERY LEAST. But specifically speaking industry standards are priced at high baselines because you are charging the company to use your image IN PRINT for MASS DISTRIBUTION. Purchasing those rights costs money, and private commissioners, like what is done in fandom, do not get those rights with your work (unless you are giving them that permission in which case you should be charging for that)
Pricelists Industry vs Fandom.
Finally made.
If anyone would care to donate a coloured comic page for the comic industry standard list I’m willing to accept one and will give credit c8 I would’ve made one if I had an example but I don’t -A-
But yes that’s off my chest.
Of course this is based off my own browsing over price lists and how I work unfortunately my commissioner homie went idle so I can’t confirm the most vs the least one can spend.
I’ve only found one artist thus far that charges nearly as close to industry standard. Even then it’s under the standard. As far a I’m concerned anyone under the standard shouldn’t have complaints about expensive art. Fandom average is hardly one you can live by.
Would you like to get paid $30 for 3-7 days worth of work?
Yeah hey, everyone look at this. This is what EVERY artist should be able to charge, even if just the lower rungs.
Gosh
ahahah ok, this actually made me remember one moment that happened on a local Con this summer, we were doing commissions there, and we were drawing A5 format chibies for 5LT(2$) they were lined, colored and looking all nice and this girl comes to us asking about prices and we tell her that chibi drawing is 2$ and she said: wow that`s too expensive and walked away.
ahahahah if only she saw this post :”D
mandatory reblog
seriously though. I sell my stuff for so cheap when I could get away with much more. Mostly because my friends are either highschoolers or college students and I can understand not having access to or having the money in general, but I’ve sold a print of an unfinished piece for $175 before to an artist/art collector friend, so I know my stuff is worth or close to being worth industry standard prices.
Its hard to see people whine at me that $10 is too expensive for a fully shaded single body when i should be selling them for more 8( But I know a lot of other people enjoy the prices because they can actually buy stuff at that price, so it’s worth it for them more than anything.
Pay attention.
PLEASE spread this message guys….
I’m not sure what message this is meant to spread. I mean, I love all my artist friends, I think you’re all INSANELY TALENTED and deserve ALL THE MONEY AND PRAISE.
But the reason the fandom standard is so much lower is that your fandom cannot afford the industry standard. Maybe one day when they pay me to photoshop or write RP I’ll be able to afford $400 for a drawing of my favorite character :/
So we, the artists, are expected to lower our prices? Commissions are /my/ only source of income, I expect anyone who commissions me to respect that. Just like an employer, the commissioner should understand that this isn’t just something that takes five minutes of my time & is no big deal. When I spend hours upon hours doing something for someone else, as a job, I demand respect.
Oh, hello idea of minimum wage. How are you doing today?
Sorry if you can’t afford my art. (Although, myy prices are horribly low, and it makes me cry. Eugh. Which is why I feel so strongly about this.) But art IS a commodity. Like.. expensive cars. We don’t /need/ them to survive. We buy them as a source of enjoyment, and sometimes as a way to flaunt our monetary worth.
Sorry, not sorry. :/No, I definitely don’t mean that you should be sorry, or that you shouldn’t be respected. I do respect you. TONS. I’m not even sure where that came into the conversation, to be honest.
All I mean is that if you are an artist doing commissions and you were to set your prices to those of the industry standards, chances are good that you’d get less work, because the people who really want your commodities (fandom) can’t afford to pay that much, especially for something they don’t ‘need’, as you said.
Reblogging for discussion. As a writer I’m in a different situation, so I won’t derail the discussion. All I can add is, there’s a reason I don’t commission art (I make requests and suggestions sometimes which some of my friends generously fulfill if they have the time and inclination and for which I’m eternally grateful, but it’s certainly not something I expect them to do or bug them about) and it’s because I know I can’t afford to pay them what their work deserves. I hope I can someday.
