Don't ship real people publicly

Alright...I can't believe I'm making a video about this (this is the transcript for that video) but I feel like it's something that needs to be addressed. This applies to any celebrity, but especially Youtubers who often read people's comments and are more involved  on social media than a famous actor or singer. 

I'm saying this because I'm worried. I only follow a few Youtubers on here, and it feels like one of them ended up becoming more distant from a good friend because of how many people were shipping them and being obnoxious about it. Now, this is just my opinion, and some other people too. But I feel like even if that's not the case, it's something people need to stop doing. All i'm seeing is comments that basically amount to "well time to ship you and this other guy!" instead of people realizing that their 'shipping' has consequences.

So, here's my main message. If you ship real people who have said that the shipping makes them uncomfortable -- you need to stop doing it publicly. I get that telling people not to ship it won't change shit, so hear me out. 

You can ship real people in your mind, no one can stop you there. You can make fanart to share among your friends and write fanfics or whatever. But you need to keep that stuff private, within a community separate from the community of the person you're a fan of.

If you're tagging it, only use the ship tags and don't spam the general fandom tags with it. And if someone says you shipping them with someone else makes them uncomfortable, it is just a dick move to send them fanart, or fanfic, or spam them with shipping comments. I mean, joking about it to some degree is okay -- and obviously if the people say they're fine being shipped, these rules don't apply! But if your friend said that something made them uncomfortable, you would hopefully avoid doing it. That same logic applies here; don't be obnoxious about shipping. 

And, especially for large communities, remember that there's probably a ton of shippers doing the same thing as you -- so it's not just a few comments here and there that a "celebrity" has to endure, but a whole onslaught of what can amount to harassment.

Now, I would also like to point out how most of these shippers are shipping two guys together, but I don't really want to get into the fetishization of gay relationships in this particular video. So please, if there's anything you take away from me rambling, just please be considerate of the people you're fans of and respect their wishes. And if you still wanna make content of a ship they feel uncomfortable with, please keep it private, within that specific community instead of in the public community. 

Thank you.

Clothing Talk

Hmm, so...I'm not really sure what to do for this post. I've kind of abandoned the other posts I wanna do for now and am just posting whatever I want when I can. 

Here's a little life update, I guess. The book is almost done, I'll be doing page fifteen today and after that there's five more pages left. Not getting a lot of feedback from Mary or the author, but that's alright. I'm assuming there won't be a lot of changes to make because we're cutting real close to the deadline -- and while I do feel kinda bad about that, it is what it is. And it's nice not having to make a lot of changes.

I've had to make some style changes to save time on the drawings and while it's not that noticeable, it kinda sucks to know that it could be a lot better if I had the time. But I know I brought it upon myself by waiting too long to start the damn thing, so I can't really complain. The main difference is that there's not a lot of work put into the line art and I'm not focused on changing the lighting or making a lot of different backgrounds.

I'll be really glad when the book is finished because then I can work on Creation Myth. I've already posted something about it on this new Facebook group I joined for autistic creators and someone said they liked my style, so I'm happy about that. Even if it was just a doodle. Any compliments on my art are a nice mood boost though, sometimes it's amazing how good I feel after reading someone's nice tags or the rare times I get anon love. It's great. =)

Y'know what, I'm going to post it here too because it's my blog and I love talking about my future webcomic.

So I doodled this shot of Chaos while he's changing, because -- excuse my language here -- I get such an art boner for seeing characters do mundane things, like getting dressed. And I love knowing every detail about a character's outfit, like how they get the clothing on, how it fits over their body, and what order said character puts each part on. When I'm done with the book, I'm going to indulge myself and doodle a bunch of my characters getting dressed in their main outfits.

Chaos is one I have a fairly good grasp on. It may look like bandages, but that's actually a chest binder he's wearing (crop top, so it doesn't pinch his belly). You may say, "Em, actual chest binders didn't exist in the pre-historic era." And I say, "Well, we're in a fantasy society with deities and magic, I'm sure they have better resources than humans did in that age." It's deciding what these resources are that's been stumping me. 

For my first idea of a chest binder, I'm imagining it as like a pre-historic version of velcro. My binder has hooks that go into either the first, second, third, or fourth row of slots. I'll either incorporate the hook idea or I'll make it more of a velcro, where you can wrap the material around and use a strong temporary adhesive to make the top layer stick in place. There's really not too much research I can find on chest binding done in ancient history, so I'll probably have to look further.

Anyways, Chaos binds his chest first, mostly because his breasts make it difficult to put on his chest piece. And despite living in a society with no cis normativity, Chaos grew up in an era of it, back when humans and deities lived on Earth together. That's why he has some gender dysphoria.

After that, he puts on a set of loose baggy pants (similar to Turkish pants). He takes a sheet of plain white cloth, wraps it around his hips, and pins it on the center of his pants, so that it curves upward just like in the picture. Next comes the loincloth, which is wrapped around the hips and over his stomach. The last step is the chest piece, which is like a normal tank top that has protective flaps attached to the front and back. 

It's hard to tell in the second picture, but the front flap wraps around and either hooks or sticks to Chaos' left side. This flap is made of a dense material that acts as armor to protect the chest from injury. The back flap is made of the same material and wraps around the same way, but attaches to Chaos' right side. Most deities have some kind of chest armor because that's their most vulnerable spot -- their bodies have super quick regeneration and healing abilities, but being struck in their core slows down that process. They can't die from it, since a deity's core heals itself when the deity is unconscious, but obviously you don't want to pass out during a battle.

Once those steps are done, any additional jewelry or decoration can be added. Shoes too, but those aren't a big deal. 

Aaand that's all for now, time to get back to work.

Excuses, Excuses

Ah, and now it becomes clear that I suck at following through on what I say I'm going to do.

(Hey, that rhymes.)

Anyways, I'll finish the second part eventually, right now I just honestly don't have the time. I just got up to the halfway point in the book, but if I want to finish by the 20th, I need to somehow cram ten more pages in. Something tells me it'll end up being a little later than my publisher wants...but there's not much I can do, I'm trying my best. There's only so much class I can skip and I've been trying to just take breaks for eating, but that leads to stiff muscles and eye strain.

On a brighter note, I think I've finally figured out what I want to do with college. I'm going to take only the classes I want to for the last semester, basically anything I think would be useful. Then, I'm going to forget pursuing the Associates in Arts and take time off to find some other employment, as well as work on getting my webcomic ready. I'll still work on children's books, and I'll have more time to do that too. But really, I need to land a minimum wage job to work at and since I don't need a degree to work as an artist, it's really just a waste of time and money.

So, theoretical reader, do you think this is a good idea? Or am I making a mistake here? 

Look, A Picture!

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Hello, theoretical reader! I know I said there'd be a part two for my previous post, and there is. I'm going to finish writing it either today or tomorrow, but there's only so much research I can do without getting exhausted. Especially when it's about Trump.

I still have a lot of work to do on this children's book too...I don't even have half the pages illustrated yet and my publisher wants it to be ready for Christmas. So, I'm going to save the second part for later and try to get more work done today. I'm actually pretty happy with how it's turning out so far. I've developed an odd fondness for two of the elf characters, Matt and Butch.

Gotta admit, I can relate to Matt the most. We're both small angry white men with short hair and big noses. ...I just don't wear as much red and green as he does.

I can't really think of any questions for this post, so I'll throw in some generic ones.

What kind of work do you do, if any? And if you have a job, do you find it easy or difficult to manage work and free time?

Trump Was Inevitable (Part 1)

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I don't mean inevitable as in we shouldn't be concerned, or that it was some kind of "manifest destiny" for Trump to be president -- that would imply that it was meant to happen (and also imply that fate is real, but that's another story). I just mean that, in retrospect, Trump becoming president was bound to happen because of the progress we've been making.

There's an odd phenomena when it comes to Americans and who we elect into office. We tend to flip-flop between parties trying to find something that "works" for us. If there were problems with a Republican president, we try out a Democratic president next, and vice versa. And even when there's nothing wrong with a party's presidency, we tend to get bored of having the same party in power. It's incredibly rare for any party to hold office past the eight year mark -- that's why we're incredibly lucky Obama scored two terms. 

Naturally, voters in this election were going to swing over to the Republican side. But that doesn't answer the question of why it was Trump's side that people turned to. There is no easy answer, but I think a lot of it has to do with all of the bigotry exposed during Obama's presidency.

I'd highly recommend anyone watch Samantha Bee's "Disturbing the PC" to know what I'm talking about. Her crew interviews some Trump supporters and when asked why they like Trump, one lady admits that Trump is saying what all of them are afraid to say because of "political correctness". Trump is expressing their beliefs and validating them instead of dismissing them for being incredibly toxic and often just flat-out wrong.

The idea that Trump has "created" a new surge of hatred and ignorance in America is a lie. Trump didn't "create" anything, he's only taking advantage of the victimization complex that people -- mostly white cisgender men -- have created for themselves. Having a black president was like a wake-up call to all the racists because for the first time, a black man was in charge of the entire country. And that scared them. 

And when I say racists, I'm not talking about white supremacists who support segregation or KKK members. I'm talking about your "average" white person, usually the ones who swear up and down that they're not racist because [insert faulty reasoning here]. I'm talking about people who may be the nicest people on Earth and who could be anyone from an elderly veteran to a progressive college student. Because the myth that racism only exists in the South or is only perpetuated by older generations is just that -- a myth.

So, with a black man in power, and a progressive one no less, people flipped. They dug up everything they could possibly criticize him on and when there was nothing to blame him for, they invented stories of their own. To Republicans, he was a controlling dictator communist who was going to ban guns and force rich people to give up all their money. And to Democrats, he was a wimp afraid to push for stronger reform and always caved in to Republicans. Either way, he was the universal scapegoat that everyone could point fingers at, resulting in the popular satirical phrase "thanks Obama". 

Both portrayals of him were inaccurate and despite how everyone made it seem like Obama achieved nothing, we've actually gotten a lot done under his administration. I won't get into everything, but the Washington Monthly has a great summary of Obama's top 50 accomplishments. And yes, people might question whether some of these are truly accomplishments or not, but I'd say there's a good amount on here most of us can agree on. Ending the war in Iraq? Hell yeah. Eliminating Osama bin Laden? Definitely. And repealing "Don't ask, don't tell"? Absolutely!

So, now we come to our main problem, which is that with any kind of progress, there's going to be backlash. Why? Because of fear. Most people are afraid of change, especially when they're privileged and feel like their "rights" are being threatened.

In 1868, black men had finally been promised full citizenship and equal legal protection thanks to Amendment XIV. Even when the South returned to local white rule ten years later, there were a lot of changes being made in the right direction. I'd suggest reading "A Brief History of Jim Crow" if you can. T. McCants Stewart, who was a black journalist during this time, said he was pretty impressed by the presence of black cops and casual conversation between white and black strangers. He thought that America was finally moving forward -- only for it to take a giant leap back when the Jim Crow laws were enacted.

In a similar vein, the whole anti-abortion movement was created to try and suppress the push for suffrage and birth control. You hardly see anything condemning abortion in ancient history, and the Bible doesn't even specifically mention abortion. Abortion was practiced until the 19th century, when women were starting to gain ground in their fight for equality. Outlawing abortion was just a way to try and control anyone with a uterus and ensure that women would have to give birth and become mothers, limiting their chances of entering the workforce and also limiting their chances of being independent if they had to rely on the father for child support (and get married, if that's what their religion commanded).

Considering all of this, I think it was only a matter of time before, once again, people do everything they can to keep their privilege. And Trump is the definition of privilege -- a rich, white, cisgender male who has the privilege of being ignorant and gets people to believe they're the victims by blaming all of America's problems on the victims themselves.

But aside from the voters themselves, I have to point fingers at the media and the role it played in the unfavorable outcome of this election. And that, theoretical reader, will be discussed in part two. Normally I'd end this with questions, but I'll save those for last.

Introduction Post

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Yo! My name's Em and this is my attempt at running a blog. Well, technically I have a Tumblr, but that's not really for posting original content.

Anyways, despite writing an introduction post, there's not much to say about me. My life is nothing special and I've listed off my interests so many times, it just seems tedious now. Honestly, it's hard to write anything when I know I'll just rewrite it or delete it later. 

I'm slightly reassured in knowing that probably no one will read this (unless I share it with my other social media; does anyone even use Blogger?) And now you, theoretical reader, are probably wondering why I would want to make a blog if I'm afraid of people reading it.

The short answer is that I want to want people to see my blog. Since I'm going to be publishing a webcomic, I have to be willing to actually post pages, talk about them, and engage with anyone who has questions or comments. So, in a sense, running a blog is a way for me to practice for that.

The long answer is that the person I imagine myself to be is completely different from the person I am...and I want to change that. Despite all the issues I had as a child and the internalized ableism that developed as a result, I really envy younger me. When I was thirteen, all I wanted to do was share my art online and give feedback to others. I loved sharing stories about my day and posting my opinions, hoping people would comment on them and offer their own thoughts too. I still roleplayed and chatted with people and, in general, I was quite happy.

But somehow, for whatever reason, all of that has changed. And sure, I can pinpoint certain incidents that may have influenced me. I remember very clearly the reaction I had when one of my watchers on deviantART told me to "get a Twitter" if I wanted to spam people with journal entries. And I remember feeling worthless when I realized that most of my watchers were only following me for free art and feedback on their art. But can I blame everything on those few things? Of course not. 

I blame a lot of things. Mental illness, puberty, being involved in the wrong communities, and most of all, I blame myself. I won't get into why because that's an even longer answer, but I want to stop feeling guilty and start trying to change myself for the better. I want to stop fantasizing about all the things I want to do and just start doing them.

So, my goal is to try and blog daily, at least once a day. Even with college and work, it shouldn't be too difficult to post something, as long as I have the self-discipline to. Hell, even if I'm going through a depressive phase, I can just write one sentence about my mental state and post that. No matter what, I'm going to hold myself to this.

And now some questions for you, theoretical reader.

What are some goals you've set for yourself? Did you achieve any of them?