My art got copyright struck, again, before anything even sold. I don't know how other people manage to get their stuff on those sites and have it stay. Am I just lucky, then? This is not the lottery I wanted to win.

Some stuff is still up there. But. I am just so fucking discouraged. It feels like a big ol' sign from the universe telling me I'm not supposed to be doing this. Like ... okay, I know, I'm not supposed to in a legal sense, but everyone else is? So it's more like "this is not my path" and that's even more annoying.

Because it was always gonna be art. It was this. This is what I went to school for. So I keep telling myself. I suppose it's not what I put my energy in, though, and if my intent is "make money" then that's not, like. A good thing to put into the world. That's gonna get strikes.

So if this isn't my path, if this isn't "what I'm supposed to do," then what is it?

If I'm not supposed to do fanart - familiar art - then what? This is what I buy. This is what I do. It's about these stories and characters and I just. My original stuff isn't going to get my anywhere. I love the characters. They're how I relate to the world. The stories are important. They're shorthand signals for who we are.

Original stuff doesn't mean anything. No one knows what it is. It sends no signal to the world about anything other than, like, "I liek birds" or whatever.

And I think about when I was in college doing all that anime art, being inspired by that style, of art and of storytelling, and how I am just, like. Disappointed in my past self for not realizing what opportunities I had at art school, to learn, I was just obsessively clinging to this fandom. Is this the same thing?

Even back then I had original stuff that was just... in that borrowed style. but it looked cool? I guess? it wouldn't have gotten me a copyright strike. now I have my own style but it's other peoples characters so I guess we can't do that!

How am I supposed to sell anything if nobody knows what it is? I can't even turn up in search until I've sold x amount of stuff. So I don't even know how anyone could even find my stuff to give me a strike.

So then I have to ask myself. What do I do? What am I supposed to do? And the fact that there is no "supposed to" is what really gets me here, it's this wide open world and how do I choose anything? How do I trust that I'll be successful when my repeated attempts at anything so far have just gotten me beaten?

The plan was always to get my art out there but I guess I don't believe in it enough, or I don't love it enough, or something. Or something.

And on top of all of this my shoulder/arm is still hurting so, so damn much that I basically want to cry. it's better than yesterday but it still hurts so the OTHER plan of catching up on etsy orders is just. not working.

wtf how are they giving you a strike if 90% of the site isn't...... were you on redbubble?

justghosts: On Teepublic. Which i originally heard about on a podcast and the ad's whole conceit was "they have cool fandom stuff!!" Redbubble took my stuff down too. The weirdest part is, it's not everything - it's just the Marvel Tarot Card designs? And then like, one of Vision? But the tarot stuff is what I feel closest to.

So idk if they're planning a deck or something or if it's someone else specifically looking up Marvel Tarot stuff to get me strikes - like I remember there were a handful of those designs going around a few weeks back and I was like... I did things like this ages ago but never posted them. Now I guess it's too late.

ugh wtf. I was going to say I've bought only fandom stuff from there so they CLEARLY do allow it

But yeah so much of it is fanart??

can I see the tarot designs?

them planning a deck wouldn't surprise me

but that is still so bizarre

I'm not at home right now but yeah, I can post them.

These four got strikes.

everything else should still be up on the teepublic shop http://www.teepublic.com...

Wait that link is wrong

https://www.teepublic.co... This is the right link

Why would any of those get strikes? Unless they looked similar in style to someone else's and they got mad about it.

SpaceMagic: That's what I want to know. But the email I got from Teepublic said that it's Disney's IP so they have to be taken down. Even though I kept Iron Man and Daredevil sort of purposely vague. idk. Maybe I'll re-upload them after a while with different tags.

I would be just as confused that the others stayed if they're claiming Disney IP and only those four were taken down. If you are not at risk with reuploading them after a while, I don't see why not. Different tags may work.

Seriously. It's not like my other ones are more vague... sigh. I will figure something out even if it means doing something completely different.

yeah that is... so weird. :x I'm sorry, that super sucks and doesn't even make sense!