Pencil Lines & Graphite Stains

scribbles & sketches

[ladyrainb0w]

[skarchomp]

there is so much discourse that boils down to "if someone doesn't want you to call them something, don't call them that" and it makes me feel insane that nobody can wrap their heads around this kindergarten-level shit

[stegal]

Ha a lélek vándorlásában hiszünk, el kell fogadnunk hogy ha zenészek voltunk, zenészek maradunk akkor is, ha négy lábbal újraszületünk..

[silvormoon]

Translation, via Google Translate:

If we believe in the migration of the soul, we have to accept that if we were musicians, we will remain musicians even if we are reborn with four legs.

[thepioden]

Wolfgang Malamozart over here like damn

[ladyrainb0w]

I'm going to preach to the choir for a second because I just thought of something.

So - there's a huge long-ongoing debate about AI being used in artistic spaces right now, and specifically the ethics behind it. Being someone who's active in some of these artistic spaces, I'm sure you can sort of guess at my stance in this matter.

Here's the thing - I could never explicitly put my finger on why AI works kind of irritate me.

I've seen a variety of thought pieces from both sides on the matter, and the argument that it makes art more accessible and therefore it should be okay never sat quite right with me. I didn't really know why though, being that in almost any other instance I'd be all for throwing open the doors to those who want to partake - was I being exclusionary? Was I being vain or pretentious? Honestly, I was tying myself up into all kinds of philosophical knots about it.

Having given it a bit more thought however, I think that my stance can be illustrated better like this:

Imagine you attend a party specifically centered around pies. A lot of people bring pies, and there's a lot of people that are there to just enjoy the various pies. You, an enthusiastic baker, pull out some of your favourite recipes and you bake six pies to bring.

Now imagine this: one of the attendees _loves_ pie, and looking at all the pies you brought, they realize that these different pies have amazing complimentary flavours, and that it would also be possible to bake a pie that combines them all. That's a great thought, right? A wonderful spark of creativity!

Now, this person brought with them a close friend, and they decide to share the idea with this friend, who is also enthusiastic because it _does_ sound delicious - so far so good.

Except - are we quite as enthusiastic about this project if attendee 1 and their friend then go to your table, grab a slice of each pie, round them up into one round pie and then present this as attendee 1's own creation?

Attendee 1 might argue that they came up with the idea for the flavour combination, not you, but how does that weigh up against the fact that _you_ baked the separate pies they used, not them? Do we consider attendee 1 the baker, or are you? Would you feel different if attendee 1 had taken their original thought and gone on to bake a new pie combining the flavours of your pie themselves?

Would you have felt differently, even, if attendee 1 had spoken to you about their idea for the flavour, and had included you in the creation of this pie if they felt that they might not have the same ability as you to bring their talent in thinking up flavour profiles to life, or they just really like your baking and want everything else about the pie done the same way you made the others?

I can only speak for myself, but to me that distinction _does_ matter, the phrasing matters, and more importantly the giving or denying of credit through that phrasing matters. Being inspired _by_ versus _taking_ someone's work are two very different things.

And some people will then point at the fact that you, the baker, might not have written the recipes you used yourself. Maybe you got them off of the internet, or out of a cookbook, or they were passed down six generations of grandmothers - who knows. To which the question arises: what makes a _baker_ versus a _recipe writer_? Obviously you can be both, but would you argue that you cannot be a baker if you don't write your recipes from scratch? I'm not pretending that we're not all building off of _something_ that came before us, that our skills are not the product of watching and imitating those who came before us - complete, pure originality is hard to come by and ridiculous to demand. But clearly there is a specific aspect to the process to which we lend the title of 'ceator' and to which we ascribe ownership of the products that come out of the process, and especially in a field where your ownership over the things you make can be vital to someone making a liveable wage or building a career in their field, that ownership and recognition is important.

[frownyalfred]

Tips for writing those gala scenes, from someone who goes to them occasionally:

Generally you unbutton and re-button a suit coat when you sit down and stand up.

You’re supposed to hold wine or champagne glasses by the stem to avoid warming up the liquid inside. A character out of their depth might hold the glass around the sides instead.

When rich/important people forget your name and they’re drunk, they usually just tell you that they don’t remember or completely skip over any opportunity to use your name so they don’t look silly.

A good way to indicate you don’t want to shake someone’s hand at an event is to hold a drink in your right hand (and if you’re a woman, a purse in the other so you definitely can’t shift the glass to another hand and then shake)

Americans who still kiss cheeks as a welcome generally don’t press lips to cheeks, it’s more of a touch of cheek to cheek or even a hover (these days, mostly to avoid smudging a woman’s makeup)

The distinctions between dress codes (black tie, cocktail, etc) are very intricate but obvious to those who know how to look. If you wear a short skirt to a black tie event for example, people would clock that instantly even if the dress itself was very formal. Same thing goes for certain articles of men’s clothing.

Open bars / cash bars at events usually carry limited options. They’re meant to serve lots of people very quickly, so nobody is getting a cosmo or a Manhattan etc.

Members of the press generally aren’t allowed to freely circulate at nicer galas/events without a very good reason. When they do, they need to identify themselves before talking with someone.

[panakina]

As someone who spent over a decade catering luxury events, let me add some back of house info:

These events are almost always open bar. They're not trying to make their money back on alcohol. They want you to drink and eat and donate generously.

If there are cocktails, there will be at most two on offer, pre-made in large tubs. You cannot order a different version, it is what it is.

There are two types of events: cocktail style or seated. The first includes roaming hors d'oeuvres or a fancy buffet with tiny plates called a grazing station. For a long night, the roaming food will get a little bigger throughout the evening and have a 'main' at some point based around a protein.

A seated event will usually be more structured and may include multiple courses. Silver service is not in vogue anymore. You are likely to get either alternating meals brought to you like at a wedding, or served banquet style. A good caterer can get a plate to everyone in a 300 person event in about three minutes.

Drunk people are the same no matter how expensive their suits. They still laugh too loud, spill their drinks and slip on the dance floor. They are usually less embarrassed about doing coke in the bathrooms.

A full scale event that starts at 6pm will have staff arriving at noon to begin setup. Earlier if there's a light show or pyrotechnics. Typically venues don't just have 30 tables and three hundred chairs lying around, let alone table cloths, chair covers, etc. It's all rented and brought in on the day. Bands and DJs will be running audio tests in the background throughout.

Most heritage buildings that host these things, like museums and manor houses, aren't really designed for them. They might put down mats so you're not walking in stilettos over two hundred year old wooden floors, the kitchens are weirdly far away, and there are not enough taps. There is never anywhere for staff to sit, so if you open the wrong door you might find half a dozen waiters sitting on upturned milk crates in a room full of million dollar paintings, eating the left over bread.

Really old buildings don't have enough bathrooms, which means the staff will be sharing with the guests.

Clean up starts the second the event ends, if not sooner. Unattended glasses will start to disappear first, then table decorations. When the timer ticks over, the lights come back on and exhausted staff strip the tables, pack up dirty glasses and unopened wine bottles and have to Tetris it all into the back of a van. The venue is booked for that day only, so everything has to be gone before anyone can go home. A large event that finishes at midnight might take until 3am to be cleared away.

These are very long and physically demanding nights for anyone working them. The staff all get to know each other, and will absolutely notice someone trying to sneak in wearing a borrowed uniform. They are not being paid enough to care.

[ladyrainb0w]

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A post shared by Em (@a_human_bean_)

[thefandomlifechoseme]

Mina thinks she's in a period drama. Jonathan is slowly but surely coming to terms with the fact that he's in a horror film

[ladyrainb0w]

I’ve been trying to work on a bunch of other stuff that’s been sitting in my folders for like… months at this point, so OBVIOUSLY my brain coughs up this Bastard Devilman instead and has me obsessively crank it out in two days.

My back hurts.

My fingers hurt.

I need a nap.

[ladyrainb0w]

A piece inspired by Bram Stoker’s Dracula - a novel I’m pretty sure I’ve read ten times over at this point between a personal love for the spooky and moody, and a thesis I wrote on Gothic Lit.

As downright silly as it can sometimes be ( Harker is an absolute Himbo and you can fight me on that ; mans has one braincell and the survival instinct of a jar of nutella) I hold it dear to my heart. I always thought Mina was a badass; what do you guys think?

[ladyrainb0w]

So I’m really into ghost stories and spooky history; this piece was inspired by the spiritualist movements of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Spook on everyone!

[i-am-aprl]

Palestinian artist Imad Abu Ishtayyah (IG: @imadabushtayyah) painted this piece during Israel's 2014 attacks on Gaza. Named 'We shall Return', the painting shows a Palestinian woman wearing a traditional Palestinian dress (thobe), rising from the buildings destroyed by Israel in Gaza.

[neil-gaiman]

I was reading a book (about interjections, oddly enough) yesterday which included the phrase “In these days of political correctness…” talking about no longer making jokes that denigrated people for their culture or for the colour of their skin. And I thought, “That’s not actually anything to do with ‘political correctness’. That’s just treating other people with respect.”

Which made me oddly happy. I started imagining a world in which we replaced the phrase “politically correct” wherever we could with “treating other people with respect”, and it made me smile. 

You should try it. It’s peculiarly enlightening.

I know what you’re thinking now. You’re thinking “Oh my god, that’s treating other people with respect gone mad!”

Happy Valentine’s Day.

[neil-gaiman]

Eleven years old. Still true.

[thehmn]

Here’s a job you probably never even knew existed but is perfect for episodic stories.

Years and years ago I worked for a substitute/temp company, meaning other companies could ask for, say, five workers for any kind of job for anywhere from a day to a month and my company would then pick out five of their employees with suitable skills and ask us if we wanted to take the job.

You can imagine I ended up getting all sorts of wacky experiences. This was the job where I was hired to clean a dirty old kitchen with 10 other people at a mansion but got lost one day and walked into a cultish room with an altar and thrones lined up along the wall.

And when I say any kind of job I mean it. People asked for all sorts of unskilled work but the company also got requests for specialized work that only certain workers could do. I spent a week in an empty building where I only saw the other worker who had been hired along with me attaching wheels to carts. At another job we were sent up through a hole in the ceiling at a mall where we cleaned out old boxes. A particularly beautiful job entailed “braiding” small transparent tubes down a wall at a temporary closed factory while the sun was shining through ceiling windows which made the tubes glitter like glass. No idea what that job was about. We did anything from cleaning to preparing food to clearing a building site to factory work to hauling fish to painting to looking after animals to-

And if you like dressing your characters up you’re going to love this; our company didn’t have their own uniform because we were always dressed in the uniforms of the companies we were hired out to, or the companies would dress us in work appropriate clothes like overalls or aprons. I was once handed a cute long dress to wear while I sold pancakes.

I realize some of it sounds dangerous but it was all perfectly safe. Sometimes companies just needed extra help with something for a few days. The only reason why I stopped was because the work wasn’t stable and you never knew how far you’d have to travel to the next job. It was fun though.

[ladyrainb0w]

Alright, people of the realm, my children,

Being as we're all seeing this post on the mighty Tumblr, I'm sure we're all to some degree familiar and comfortable with the joy that is the phenomenon of social media, and all the doors it opens for us in terms of communication. Nowadays we have friends all over the world, only a screentap away from us - and it's awesome! It's great! The internet and social media have brought us a lot of great things, and allowed us to meet a lot of great people that we might never have met before, and that's cool.

What's a lot less cool is that there's also, as always, predators out on the prowl in chatboxes, message boards and whatnot (god, I sound like my mother). I don't need to tell you that, probably. All the same, I thought I'd share some of my own experiences with the internet's resident creepsters, and maybe give some of you a look into how they operate. Feel free to add any of your own that you have run into, and remember: "No." is a whole sentence, and the 'block' and 'report' buttons are there for a reason.

Without further adoo, heave-ho and off we go to

✨ Types of Creepy Randos in your DMs; A Beastiary ✨

1.  The Flasher

Y'know that old stereotype of the middle-aged dude in the trenchcoat loitering about on the street or in the park, waiting for some poor, hapless, unsuspecting victim to come ambling by to scar them for life with the ol' carrot and walnut salad? Yeah.

A fair amount of unfortunate drive-through workers could probably already tell you that this particular creature eagerly rides the wave of technological advancement, and this is proven once again by their adaptability to the medium of the internet. In my experience, this particular breed of creep likes to present itself as a hapless, innocent-if-prone-to-accidents friendly dork; sometimes they're middle-aged, 'just lonely and looking for someone to talk to', other times they pretend to be the stuttering awkward 'oh golly me, so sorry about that' school nerd. This is also how they try to get away with the crime: you'll be having a perfectly normal conversation, and then they'll be asking your opinion about something or wanting to show you something and oh, whoopsy, they accidentally send you a picture of their cocktail shrimp instead of the kittens they meant to send you! How silly of them!

As an added bonus, some of these dingleberries like to combine their MO with a hefty side of guilt tripping, whimpering and whining. Remember: it usually takes several button clicks to make and send a picture- that means there's been several conscious decisions made before this picture was 'accidentally' send to you, and not one of these decisions was to just...y'know...NOT be creepy and gross.

2. The Dial

This one likes to gradually dial things up as they go. It's an incredibly sneaky and insidious way of going about things - in fact, I would argue that between the slow-drip method and the quick defense method of 'I didn't mean anything weird by it!' it's just another type of gaslighting.

They start small; just a sincere question about a post you've made, maybe - a foot in the door.  You might end up having a lovely conversation, perhaps even a blooming friendship. But then.

But. Then.

The tone slowly starts to shift. The questions become increasingly...off. You can't really put your finger on it, but something feels wrong.

But this person has been so friendly, so normal, all this time! Surely they don't mean anything by it? This is probably just how they show affection to friends, right? You don't want to be oversensitive or a spoilsport, so you just kind of shake it off. Except it keeps happening, and the feeling of discomfort keeps growing, until one day you realize that your boundaries have been all but annihilated and you're not sure how, or when, or how to adress this now without looking unhinged.

The sad thing about these people is that this particular MO proves that they can be perfectly charming - they can hold a perfectly normal, fun, conversation about normal topics. They are often intelligent, fun to talk to and make a show of being invested and informed. And they know all this - they bank on you growing so comfortable that you'll barely known what's hitting you when they do start to get inappropriate, and might even use that to try and trap you in feelings of guilt or responsibility.

These are also tactics often deployed by predators who groom their victims, so guys, gals and nonbinary pals: be your own best friend. Stand up for yourself. 'No' is a whole sentence, and your discomfort is not an argument to be won or lost.

3. The Love Bomber

This person just loves you so much. They're pretty sure you're soulmates and they're not sure how to go about life without you- about five messages in. They like to interperse their wildly amorous exclamations with the occasional well-timed 'haha' or 'lol' - just to keep it appropriately casual, y'know. They seem drawn to picture-focused media, like instagram, and will often focus on complimenting your physical attributes - not unlike one of those wonderfully generic loveletter-songs churned out by boybands across the world (Bo Burnham's 'Repeat Stuff', anyone?). They're intensely complementary, and want you to know they just admire you so much, you're their idol! Their life wouldn't be complete without you in it! This person agressively pets your ego in the hopes of getting any range of nice-person-points in return. They're very remeniscent of obsessive, rabid fans - willing to die for you, goddamn it, but god forbid they find out their fervour and devotion isn't equally met (because seriously, you barely know this person and they're setting your teeth on edge).

This type has an even louder and more intense, might-be-hiding-a-crusty-collection-of-kink-magazines-in-their-bookbag-and-reading-them-at-family-gatherings cousin:

4. The Weawwy Weird Weeaboo

This person comes in swinging with ALL CAPS LETTERS and an entire arsenal of emojis, plus a whole colourwheel of heart emojis. Hell, they might even toss in some 'rawr XD' for the lulz. They're often found in the nerdier corners of the internet, which is how they'll try to make their way through the door - armed with memes of your favourite show and a lot of game references to make sure you know they're part of the same 'in' crowd as you. They're essentially waging war on your boundaries with a lot of noise and overt enthusiasm bordering on the psychotic, and like their brethren mentioned above make sure to loudly proclaim their undying love for you every couple minutes. Inappropriate messages or picture-sharing is often hidden behind a smokescreen of 'omg so RANDOM lmaoroflcopter' or 'I can't help it, I just get so EXCITED 😥😥😥😥'.

This is also another one that likes to use your feelings of guilt against you, and acts like a kicked puppy if confronted. They know what they're doing - don't force yourself to put up with their bullshit.

5. The 'Kid Just Like You'

This asshole tries to trick their way into your good graces/nudes/private information by lulling you into a false sense of security because you're the same age/gender/sex/(sub)culture/whatever so it's al fiiiiiine, relaaaaaaax, you can totally trust them! Boundaries don't exist when you're like siblings, amirite? How do you do, fellow humanoids? Wanna talk about some totally normal humanoid stuff??

Once again, this is a popular tactic employed by predators out to groom people, so be mindful of what you share, with whom, and why - it's okay to be friendly or even friends with people on the internet, but at the end of the day there's still an anonymity out here that's easily abused by people that are so inclined. You do not owe anybody your trust, especially if something feels off and you're uncomfortable. In fact, I've often seen the book 'The Gift of Fear' by Gavin de Becker mentioned as a great treatise on why there's a very good reason for that weird feeling in your underbelly, and why you should listen to it.

6. The Martyr/The Vampire

The Martyr, or 'the Vampire' for this exact reason, twists themselves into all kinds of knots and pretzels to try and get you to invite them in on your own volition while trying at the same time to look as 'casual' as possible.

Their favourite way is to make sure that you know how much pain they've suffered before coming to your door - somehow they just seem to be perpetually inviting scorn from others, completely unprompted of course! Won't anybody show them just a little bit of kindness in this dark, unforgiving world???

It's once they've been let in, however, that the truth starts coming out and suddenly you find yourself understanding why this person has so much trouble finding - and keeping - friends, and it has very little to do with the world at large and everything to do with this specific person and their behaviour. Common denominators and all that.

This beastie might try to strong-arm you into whatever they want with thinly veiled threats of making you another mark on their growing tally of 'terrible people they have been victimised by' - which, frankly, why would you give a shit? They usually end up shooting themselves in the foot anyway as they work themselves down the line of people to cozy up to.

7. The V E R Y Studious Student

This person has a *lot* of questions for you, and they seem weirdly...intimate. Some of them might even skip right by that step and go for the all-out sexual questions, all the while staunchly mainting that it's all in the pursuit of science/their project/a questionnaire/their own TOTALLY CLINICAL curiousity. In one hilarious example I was presented with an actual, honest-to-god *questionnaire* about my (ahem) bedroom habits, supposedly for a forum about statistics.

Best way to handle: don't answer questions you don't feel comfortable answering, especially if it's to a stranger who doesn't really have any business knowing this information. They're not your doctor.

[aeolian-mode]

I wrote this because I've been particularly crushed and burnt out lately, and it's thanks to one thing: I'm tired of being at the mercy of the Algorithm. I'll rant for a bit here, and explain the problem I'm facing and what it's doing to me.

In order to maximize our visibility on a platform- any platform- we have to perform up to the Algorithm's standards- and these standards are nebulous and subject to change at any time. But, generally speaking, we must post consistently. We must post at specific times of day, at specific times of week, and use the service a lot. The more we use the service and the more consistently we post, the more the robot likes us and allows us to come up in search results. The algorithm would prefer that we post 2 times daily at specific times of day. For artists to regularly churn out beautiful, original content, twice daily, on a consistent schedule in order to be seen? The expectations are crushing. This is especially challenging for artists who do this for a living, like me. We run storefronts, take commissions, create custom merchandise, and struggle to manage our social media accounts on top of everything else.

Because of the unrealistic, crushing expectations of the Algorithm, the accounts that tend to succeed on social media platforms are: *drumroll* thieves. There are people who grow a massive following off of constantly stealing from other artists. They repost other people’s work, often without permission or credits. They often put advertisements to their own storefront on someone else’s hard work.

There are people who grow a massive following off of telling complete lies to their viewers, with heavily edited cuts and “life hacks” that don’t work at best, and are actively dangerous at worst (5 minute crafts, etc.)

There are also people who grow a massive following off of tracing and painting over other artists’ work. Some people are known to steal the hard work of photographers and paint on top of it and pass it off as their own original content. Sure, it does take some artistic knowledge to paint over a photograph and transform it into a different character, but very little of that process involves the artist making informed, stylistic choices on their own merits. It is, at its core, thievery of someone else’s artistic knowledge.

Stealing other people’s work saves a lot of time. It requires very little personal skill, and these people manage to get thousands upon thousands of followers for a fraction of the effort. And the Algorithm loves that.

It actively promotes thieves and liars. The people who actually work hard to earn a place on their own merits, with their own skill, without the crutch of thievery, tracing or paintovers will astronomically fail in comparison. It’s because we simply can’t keep up. We can’t post regular, original content on a consistent schedule. Making an original piece of art takes so much time, effort, and thought. It’s no wonder so many people turn to thievery. We’re backed into a corner. The only way to meet the algorithm’s standards is to either become a 24/7 art factory, which is soul-destroying and a recipe for burnout… or steal. Trace other people’s art. Repost other people’s work. Paint over photographs. Do whatever it takes to churn out content, make the algorithm happy, and grow an audience who will hopefully buy your products, commission you or become your patron. It’s starting to destroy my spirit. To work as hard as I do, and still feel like I’m fighting an uphill battle against people who didn’t earn their spot at the top. That the only way to efficiently win the capitalism game is to become a thief. That the people who make it in this world are the ones that don’t have integrity.

If you want to help your favorite artists, this is how: like it, share/retweet/reblog, comment, subscribe/follow. Remember that this isn’t to give a content creator an ego boost: it’s to tell the robot that’s controlling our livelihoods that you like the content and want to see more of it. We’re all fighting a nameless, faceless, inhuman monster to survive this cutthroat market. Thank you for reading, and for helping us out. Awareness of the problem is the first step to solving it, and hopefully, one of these days, social media sites will recognize the monster they created and start changing the algorithm to favor artists, not thieves and liars.

[ladyrainb0w]

Trying To Reach The Finance Department Be Like

Dialogue (because my word bubbles and placement are shit):

"Shouldn't we pick up the phone?"

"Nah, they'll call back."

[krungy]

Tangled (2010) concept art © Claire Keane

[ladyrainb0w]

Still high-key want a house like that