Hi everyone,

I know I've been practically dead lately and I'm sorry about that.

As of today I have changed my username to thatevilcupcake () I know this is a stupid dumb thing to do, but basically Martianlunatic represents a time in my life that really sucked, so I'm trying to get past it by switching to something more evil and cupcakey. I'm in the process of re-watching all you fine people and re-fave-ing all my favorites, but it will take time so be patient. If I watched you and I haven't re-watched you, feel free to give me a poke Also, if you're interested in my art, I'd love it if you'd watch me on my other account, but you don't have to.

Hopefully I'll be able to update soon with more interesting art as well, as I recently got a new tablet for my birthday. Huzzah!

Anyway, this is farewell but not really, and I might end up checking this account time and again to see what's new.

Peace!

Sorry for the spam. I apparently fail at journal making. Hi everyone!

Hi everyone. As if my last journal entry wasn't controversial enough *coff coff*

Recently there's been a lot of drama on DA regarding art theft. Because the artist in question is popular and well known, a large amount of people are telling her it's okay and they love her anyway, while others are flocking to her account to tell her what scum she is in their eyes. It occurs to me that I was getting inordinately annoyed at all the people who were saying negative things about her, and I wasn't exactly sure why. She did steal art, after all, and it's not like I'm going to go around advocating art theft all over the internet. So why did this borderline flame war get on my nerves so much? And then I realized I've never really come out and stated my opinion on art theft. It is an opinion a lot of people won't like, and I'm sorry about that. If I were a bit more well known I'm sure I'd get flamed, but in my obscure corner of DA I suppose I'll be fine.

The thing about art theft is, when I imagine someone who would do such a thing, I picture someone immature. Juvenile. Even if the person who does it is an adult, I feel they have the mentality of a twelve year old, and must be none too bright to gank some stuff and call it their own and honestly think they can get away with it. "Retard noob" pretty much sums it up. On occasion I will give them the benefit of the doubt in hopes that they really are so noobish that they don't know what they're doing is wrong, but by and large such asshats are not worth my time or attention. I'm aware my stuff is not that good, so nobody would be likely to steal it, but if they did, I'd probably send them a note telling them not to and laugh it off. Most art thieves can't really present a compelling case that they created the stuff they claim to have created anyway, so why bother? I might politely point it out to the community so that they know I made my stuff and not them, and as long as nobody thinks they actually created the stuff that is mine (and in most cases of art theft I've seen, the perpetrator is pretty transparent), then I really could care less.

Another thing I'm going to mention that will be controversial is tracing. I admit there are nicer ways of improving your skill than that, but I really don't have a problem with it. But there is a BIG caveat. Like, in the art theft case that prompted me to write this entry, the artist in question colored over some manga pages and tried to pass it off as fan art. That is bad. However, if she had simply colored over some manga pages and said, very clearly, in the description of the deviation, "Hey this is me coloring over some manga pages, so don't comment on the drawing it's not mine, but isn't my coloring PURTY?" then I wouldn't have a problem with that. The only issue might be in copyright troubles with the original publisher of the manga, but one treads that line narrowly by posting fan art in the first place anyway. Even coloring manga panels might be permissible legally as long as it's well cited. In fact, I went through a phase for awhile where I was tracing photographs and posting them as "photomanipulations." Since I was very clear from the start in my descriptions that that was what I was doing, and the photos I was tracing were credited public domain stock photos, I don't think I did anything immoral. I don't do it anymore because it was a dumb hobby that didn't improve my skill any, but you can find some buried in my gallery if you care.

Now here is what I DON'T think about art thieves, and why a lot of the posts on the aforementioned offender's site got on my nerves. People seem to say in quite vitriolic tones that art thieves are the worst kind of people in the world and that there is no crime more lowly than being a retard noob and ganking someone else's crap. Well no offense, but I can think of a lot of worse things. Murderers, serial rapists, and genocidal dictators all come to mind. Seriously, art thieves are annoying and noobish, but flaming them and calling them the worst kind of people seems a bit extreme at best and really gets on my nerves at worst. I don't approve of art theft, and I in fact find it rather a pointless and stupid thing to do, but I simply don't get the fierce glowing-red-eyed-smoke-coming-from-the-ears reaction that most people in this community seem to have. Even in situations like this one where the offender is a proven art thief, it tends to spread into other arenas, and people frivolously shout "art theft" left and right over things that should not be considered art theft, and even simple coincidences.

TL/DR:

Pointing out that art theft is wrong is a good idea. Telling art thieves that they are a worse version of Hitler is a bit extreme.

I originally wanted to post this as a reply to someone else's journal entry, but I realized that he really probably didn't need or want to hear me on my soap box and it's something that grinds my proverbial gears in general, he just happened to be in my line of fire. Therefore I'm going to make my own journal entry about it.

I'm a literature major at school as well as astronomy (hoping to write sci-fi one day ... like that's going to happen, ha) and the thing that pisses me off the most about literary fiction, science or otherwise, is that somewhere along the line someone decided that a work didn't have any merit unless it told us what dirty, dirty flawed evil beings we are. Granted, I suppose this has been a common trend in literature since the Bible, but since science fiction became mainstream it has become more pronounced. Why, does it seem, that schools and English classes give so much more literary merit to Orwell and Huxley than they to do Heinlein and Asimov? Because the former two are depressing and the latter two aren't, that's the only reason. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with the darker side of fiction. Granted it's certainly not my cup of tea, I have enough issues in the real world without reading to become depressed, but I believe that there is at least room in the world for more than one type of fiction. People need to be uplifted at least every once in awhile or they will simply give up on trying to improve themselves. Many great acts through history have been accomplished as a combination of both types of inspiration -- to achieve the hopes and dreams of a better future, and to prevent the nightmares of a worse one. Cautionary tales are one thing, but telling humanity we're pretty much screwed and deserve to be that way just seems like a form of giving up to me.

In fact, it seems like pessimism has a noticeable effect on the prosperity of the people. Right now we live in a very pessimistic era. The 1970s, too, were extremely pessimistic. The economy sucks now, and the economy sucked in the 1970s too. Coincidence? I don't know. I'm not an economist. But I don't think that there's anyone who doesn't on some level wish for the more optimistic times of the 1990s or 1960s. Also it seems like progress and advances in technology have slowed down as a direct result. In the 1960s we were going to the moon and all kinds of other things, and then as soon as 1970 hit people decided that humanity wasn't worth it, and suddenly we could barely build a space shuttle that worked. The point is I hate this pessimism about humanity. I realize we are flawed, but just telling ourselves that and patting ourselves on the back for realizing it is NOT going to make the world any better of a place. Because there's a certain arrogance, too, from attempting to be humble and saying humanity is worthless. Like you're one of the Holy Enlightened Ones who is above worthless humanity just because you've given up on your foolish caveman notions of hope and perseverance. It makes me sick. What's wrong with dreaming of a better future? What's wrong with working towards one? What is so horrible about trying to overcome our weaknesses instead of succumbing to them?

Thank you for listening to my bitch rant.

And not in a "My spoon is too big" sort of way, either.

I got the answer from my school's creative writing department yesterday. Apparently they have "Reviewed my application and do not feel I am ready to enter their competitive program at this time." It's not like I didn't see it coming, or anything. I mean, I knew that I should have waited until next semester. But rejection still sucks, enough to rant about it on my DA journal. It makes me wonder if there's anything that I'm good at. I failed at engineering, and now I'm failing at this. Woe is me.

The funny thing is that I'm not that upset. I got the news and was sad for approximately five minutes, but now I'm more amused than anything else. I sort of have a general attitude of "fuck-em." Just because I don't write about death and angst and how woeful humanity is, suddenly my work is cliche and un-literary. In other words, I try to write things that people might actually want to read, what a thought. I might work on polishing my writing and re apply in the spring. Or, I might not. It depends on how I'm feeling then. I was fiddling with my degree audit and it looks like I could graduate a whole semester earlier if I just stick with a lit major.

Not that I necessarily consider that a good thing, considered I'm scared shitless of the real world and I have no idea what I'm going to with my life or how I'm going to make money once I'm out of school. Life was so much simpler back when I liked math and I was going to be a rocket scientist and go to the moon. Le sigh.

BTW, I still plan on finishing my novel. I know it's probably going to suck. I know that it has the unfortunate disadvantage of being written by my talentless-cliche-not-good-enough-for-a-formal-creative-writing-education self. But I don't care. I'm going to finish it and I'm going to try to get it published and I'm going to save all my rejection letters in a three ring binder, including the one I got yesterday. And maybe one day I'll get lucky and someone will think it's decent enough to try and sell, and then I'll get really really lucky and people will want to buy it and then I'll make millions of dollars and be able to rub it in the face of the dumbfuck creative writing department at the university of colorado, and all will be glorious. Haha, I wish. But I do still plan on finishing it, eventually.

I guess I have to make a meeting with the department chair and go over what exactly about my story sucked so bad. I have to suck it up and deal with what I already know, that my writing is cliche drivel and no one will ever take me seriously as a writer. But I really, really don't want to, because it sucks so much more, hearing it from someone else.

Sigh.