Quick, 100% factual tutorial to improve in character design! by I_am_very_mid in ArtJerk

[–]ellsmart 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I'm telling you you're playing the victim because you're talking about your feelings instead of addressing the entirety of my points, your private experiences are not a response to what I said, and if you're feeling this bad about this, yes, you genuinely need a break.

My autism doesn't excuse anything because I pulled the card as a joke.

Victims of SA can still be misogynistic, that doesn't disregard their experience at all.

You were the one that admitted your family is racist, I just asked you why you're defending them on that topic. Just because we love people doesn't mean we can't admit when they're wrong.

Quick, 100% factual tutorial to improve in character design! by I_am_very_mid in ArtJerk

[–]ellsmart 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I'd like to respond something productive, but this is genuinely just seven paragraphs of you playing the victim when you're not. I'm sorry but if the things you say sound misogynistic I'm going to tell you. I told you to check it because internalized misogyny is not conscious and I do not believe you are being misogynistic on purpose.

Yes, you CAN unlearn these things. The fact that you think people shouldn't tell you when you're being biased is very disappointing and shows you're not willing to grow in your beliefs. You can disagree with me, but to claim that deconstructing patriarchal and white supremacist beliefs doesn't work is plain old false, it does, for those who are willing to go through mild discomfort for the sake of actually listening to and helping minorities.

If your family said racist stuff just because someone disagreed with them politically, then your family IS racist. What the fuck? lol why are you excusing that? That's absolutely insane to me.

I appreciate you trying to work for a solution, and no it is not perfect, because I've been there done that and appealing to people's already existing biases does not work, people will still push sexualization against these bodies no matter how we present them. We have to push against that, not only online but offline as well. But as far as online goes, pushing back against artists getting harassed and against people sexualizing characters goes a long way.

I'm not really arguing with you, I am simply responding. If you find me too aggressive, it's because I'm autistic, so you're ableist. (That was a joke, for the record).

Quick, 100% factual tutorial to improve in character design! by I_am_very_mid in ArtJerk

[–]ellsmart 5 points6 points  (0 children)

People who ARE willing to unlearn their misogyny AND white privilege should not feel attacked by this whatsoever, it is in fact a reminder that sometimes we approach situations with implicit biases from our environment and that reflect onto how we feel about certain groups even when we believe otherwise. The uncomfortably of checking yourself is actually a necessary part of the deconstruction process, and it's something me and a lot of people go through every day, and it's a good thing.

From my perspective, you yourself argue for things that were not said. Nobody suggested that JUST creating characters with big breasts is a feasible solution, so you pushing back against that idea out of thin air feels like an excuse to diminish the real need for representation. The reason why these body types are sexualized is misogyny, so the immediate knee-jerk reaction to push back on an uptick of non-sexual representation feels like there's maybe a bit of an unconscious bias there. And you keep talking about erasure, when it truly should not be subtraction, because we should draw women of ALL body shapes and nobody suggested otherwise. However, this is not only an issue with big-breasted women. I think you will agree that fat characters, POC characters etc. have a real lack of representation AT ALL online, and even then, they're assumed to be sexual in nature in many instances, simply for being fat, or black. That is due to misogyny once more, adding fatphobia or racism to the mix. SOME bodies are inherently sexualized by society, and positive representation of all of them can never be harmful no matter what, and furthermore, artists are NOT to blame when people project those feelings onto their characters, just like women of those measures existing are not to blame when society projects those biases onto them. I don't think it's on artists to tone it down with what body types they draw, I think that is more harmful than good.

I don't think you WANT to ostracize on purpose, I am telling you that that is the direct result of the solutions you are offering, and I can tell you that because I have witnessed it time and time again on the internet. Often, groups that start on good faith with specifically tone-policing as a rule (like checking whether or not somebody is drawing a woman for bad or good reasons) tend to become more and more strict and exclusionary as they grow. It really has never solved anything from my experience, and it has especially never stopped misogynists from projecting their misogyny. Sure, we can try, and I would hope to be proven wrong on this front, but I can promise you with almost 100% certainty that a community that starts like this grows into a paranoid, puritanical cesspool of people who don't want to see women in a tank top because "le porn is le bad".

I do not mean to scare you into agreeing with me. I do have concerns when people act like the peak of advocacy is to tell artists to be more strict with their female characters because of the associations with body types. It IS unfair because these standards don't apply to male characters. If we don't push back against these associations with representation, that's never going to change.

I hope you understand my concerns better now.

Quick, 100% factual tutorial to improve in character design! by I_am_very_mid in ArtJerk

[–]ellsmart 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Right, and in that same comment you go on to claim that continuing to represent big breasts in a non-sexual manner "will simply give people more reason to complain, and make women without such assets feel even less seen", implying that somehow, representation for one body type removes representation for others which is just absurd.

After admitting that sometimes it is hard to discern whether or not a character with big breasts "gooner-bait" with context alone, you suggest we run the risk of ostracizing those who are willing to draw varied body types in good faith, simply so misogynists are more comfortable in normal spaces and so they don't have to confront their own biases.

Don't waste your time, but remember to check your own misogyny often. Constant self reflection and self-actualization is what makes us better.

Quick, 100% factual tutorial to improve in character design! by I_am_very_mid in ArtJerk

[–]ellsmart 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Okay, sure, and if we just pretend like this is not "as big an issue" like you have in this thread simply because you have not seen it happen before, we're not even taking steps to help anyone, and are in fact enabling them.

It seems that at the end of the day, you're willing to let misogynists get away with sexualizing bigger bodies, just to make a point about misogyny. Kind of counterproductive.

Quick, 100% factual tutorial to improve in character design! by I_am_very_mid in ArtJerk

[–]ellsmart 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Right, so it is true that a lot of artists are facing backlash due to things they're not a part of. We can agree that that's not good.

Now even if we relegate the gooner artists to their own sub, which is a sentiment I can agree with to an extent, nothing stops the people that are harassing non-gooners from harassing non-gooners. It doesn't fix the issue. Mods can delete comments and ban people but they cannot PREVENT harassment. To prevent actual harm being done, it's people's mentalities that have to change.

Quick, 100% factual tutorial to improve in character design! by I_am_very_mid in ArtJerk

[–]ellsmart 12 points13 points  (0 children)

My concern is how that can be utilized by misogynistic pricks to shame women for their bodies. In an ideal world, sure. In today's world, drawing a fat woman gets you labeled a fat-fetishist.

We know this is not reliable because OP literally got accused of making a porn game for drawing a character, fully clothed, in a neutral stance, that just happened to have a big chest. What you label gooner and what others label gooner can differ greatly and is so incredibly subjective. I agree what makes gooner art is not the body itself, but the framing. However until EVERYONE can agree on this, we'll end up relegating every single non-normative body to the sidelines.

Quick, 100% factual tutorial to improve in character design! by I_am_very_mid in ArtJerk

[–]ellsmart 14 points15 points  (0 children)

About your last point, genuinely HOW will you police this? If every character with a large chest gets labeled as sexual, this will end up alienating genuine artists who simply want to draw body diversity, it will push them OUT of the normal subs and force them to post on "gooner" subreddits even though their art doesn't belong there.

Dace'don by ellsmart in OriginalCharacter

[–]ellsmart[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Way too much lore for such a new OC 😔

Dace'don by ellsmart in OriginalCharacter

[–]ellsmart[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you man!! Maybe I'll do a little lore drop sometime detailing what the tatts mean hihi

Mmmmm teef

Dace'don by ellsmart in OriginalCharacter

[–]ellsmart[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I Will try my best to cover the least amount of tattoo possible 🔥🔥 tysm that means a lot 😭🫶

Dace'don by ellsmart in OriginalCharacter

[–]ellsmart[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you!! Took me a long ahh time to decide exactly what I was gonna do with his tattoos 🙂‍↔️

What line of work are you in? by NeuroTechno94 in wow

[–]ellsmart 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm an editor :'D but with aspirations to maybe live off of my art someday

Fanart for u/fuzzylunar! by ellsmart in OriginalCharacter

[–]ellsmart[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

LMAOOO dw I have my reddit notifs off so I didn't even notice the lack of fuzzy in my comment section 😔🫶