(not gonna reblog that chain because a) i don’t want a huge pile of notes on my dash from people arguing with something someone said 4 reblogs up b) it’s already pretty big and ugly and c) i don’t really wanna spread it)

i’m just wondering what kind of art and story qualifies here. like, do fancharacters qualify? yeah they’re using the backdrop of an existing world, but the design and personality and background is the artist’s own. what about aus, which use the characters but the setting and story are different? the comics and whatnot which are used to explore and expand things in the original material that canon won’t go into (which does include potential relationships between characters)? it’s not like fanart is this creativity void where new ideas can’t arise because they are tied to a source. even just characters sitting in a void wearing fancy clothes, like, that’s fucking fashion design drawing inspiration from the palette/cut of the character’s original costume, how can you say that is invalidated because the model used is an existing character instead of a faceless colourless statue like regular fashion art tends to be?

of course fanart/fanfiction/whatever can be vapid as hell, but so can original stories and if you are an artist then you should be well aware of that because we’ve all started up with vapid dumb stories about vapid dumb characters that were all our own. there are a lot of really bad fanfics out there, ones that have awful plots and awful designs and awful portrayal of characters and awful worldbuilding, but would they be any better if they were wholly original? like REALLY NOW would jackie diaz be a better author if her godawful comic was unattached to avatar simply because there was no source material for her to springboard off of. i’m not going to say “if a beautiful and well-made fanart was instead a wholly original piece, would it be any less beautiful?” though because the default answer is yeah it would be, as if there is some kind of false ceiling that prevents it from being valued as art, only as a consumer product. no contemporary sources allowed, only public domain. and that’s… silly?? or are stories based on old myths Not Valuable either because they were derived from a story someone a long time ago thought up and wrote about, which for all we know could have been itself based on another story? why is a creative work—like a good one, made by a talented and creative person—worth less when the source is young than if the source is old as balls? does it have to do with copyright and how we view intellectual property nowadays and therefore this argument is not actually about creativity at all?

you can’t ride on fanart if you want to go into art as a professional career because!! people will sue you for it!! you shouldn’t be selling posters of stuff without the original artist’s permission while they still hold the rights to it. it doesn’t mean you are a hack if you make the poster, it just means that you are a dick if you are trying to make big bux off it. the only way in which your poster is less valuable is monetary value. and if you weren’t planning to sell it to consumers—be it fanart or original—how much you could be paid for it doesn’t mean a damn thing.

and you wouldn’t say that hobbyists are inherently lesser than professionals, would you?

p.s. as for “fanartists who never ever draw original stuff” i’d be willing to bet most people who primarily draw fanart still have their own original characters, even if they don’t post pictures of them on tumblr for you to see? or like, they might even HAVE another tumblr especially for original works, and you’re just not aware of it (this is pretty common)? they might just use tumblr for doodles and scribbles and all their original art goes into a fancy portfolio site. “well i didn’t see it” is really really poor and you should be ashamed of yourself if you ever find yourself saying this

p.s. rufftoon made a REALLY FUCKING GREAT au comic for avatar where admiral zhao ended up living with the water tribe after his defeat at the north pole

is it… not art? are you seriously going to tell me that comic is worth less than the original series because damn

oh my fucking god tumblr get your beliefs in order

if you’re going to deride somebody for doing/saying/believing something then you know, don’t be a hypocrite about it. maybe you changed your stance on an issue—you’ve mulled it over after talking with some people or thinking about it for yourself, and you’ve realised you were wrong or uninformed or overreacting—but it’d be really super nice if maybe you acknowledged that? “i used to think this way too but now i know better?” some people are rude and terrible and ought to be shut down, but honestly when i’ve seen you say the same things, believe the same things (maybe in a less aggressive tone to less of an audience with more social justice buzzwords) you aren’t looking so good yourself. point fingers and ridicule one person when it’s most convenient for you, when you want to impress certain friends, and then completely flip your position when another guy comes along who is more annoying than the first? that’s. bad. that’s bad and wrong and you should be ashamed.

if you pride yourself on being socially aware at least be consistent with it, please. or admit you were wrong the first time. or, you know, don’t lecture about this shit when you’re not totally firm in your beliefs and when you’re really, really emotional about the issue. also learn to pick your targets better, don’t go after obvious trolls and don’t go after people whose stance you don’t actually know. it might help a bit. thanks in advance.

ps. shipping is not real life, authors don’t always write about things that they agree with, fandom is not serious business, shut the fuck up.

So apparently Cancer was cured last week, but no one gives a fuck →

plastic-curse:

ok wtf

“In human bodies there is a natural cancer fighting human cell, the mitochondria, but they need to be triggered to be effective.”

Yeah this article? This article doesn’t know what the fuck it’s talking about. They linked the mitochondria wikipedia page and either they did not bother to read it or they read it and did not understand a simple thing middle schoolers can grasp easily. Either way they’re not qualified to be reading and writing articles about cancer if they literally don’t know anything about cells or how they function. How could they read a scientific research paper and report on it when they don’t even know automatically that mitochondria aren’t cells at all.

For the record, they’re organelles, or in the simplest terms possible little machines inside every cell in your body, and they are responsible for generating energy for the rest of the cell to use among other things. They are not cancer-fighting cells. They are not cancer-fighting cells.