Azeris's Art Profile

  So earlier today I mentioned posting some “remastered” versions of my old works, and here they are!

  In the past, I’d always been reluctant to add watermarks to my work, because I felt they’d detract from the pictures themselves; however over the course of the past week alone I’ve been met with too many instances to count of people reposting my work without my permission, both credited and not.

  This is genuinely one of the biggest dickmoves you can make to an artist, as it’s a case of taking their hard work, stuff that they are genuinely proud of and that they spent time and effort making, and throwing it out in a frequently random and completely out of context manner without even having the courtesy to ask first, and -in some instances - expecting them to appreciate it.

  While I’m aware that this is a sadly incredibly common occurrence, I maintain that it really doesn’t need to be.

  Regretfully however, I am likely going to have to start watermarking my work like this. I was thinking something along the lines of;

Writing about an authoritarian theocracy did not make Margaret Atwood an authoritarian theocrat.

Writing about adultery did not make Leo Tolstoy an adulterer.

Writing about a ghost did not make Toni Morrison a ghost.

Writing about a murderer did not make Fyodor Dostoevsky a murderer.

Writing about a teenage addict did not make Isabel Allende a teenage addict.

Writing about dragons and ice zombies did not make George R.R. Martin either of those things.

Writing about rich heiresses, socially awkward bachelors, and cougar widows did not make Jane Austen any of those things.

Writing about people who can control earthquakes did not make N.K. Jemisin able to control earthquakes.

Writing about your favorite characters and/or ships in situations that you choose does not make you a bad person.

Authors are allowed to write morally ambiguous characters.

Authors are allowed to write downright despicable characters - and guess what they are even allowed to make despicable characters charismatic and likeble and the protagonists of their stories if they wish - because absolute monsters exist only under the bed.

It is not up to the author to spoonfeed the readers about morality and Yes I know this character did a bad thing and I am going going to show it in the story and make other characters call them out of it and– Bullshit.

The authors should be able to write what they want without having thousands of people jumping and their throats claiming to know them, their ideas and their morality based on what they write.