I said it at the end of that post, but I was not clear at the top.

This offer also extends to all #gamedevs, toymakers and and any other kind of independent media producers.

I'm looking for a 30 - 90 second video spot about what you do that we can upload (like what we've done so far for Joker Joker TV and Working Class Music) and, if you're interested, a longer interview about your creative process in the style of What's Stopping You: https://vod.newellijay.tv/w/pgudbseVPhheAjpbC8fDYb )

This all ties back in to the thing I was talking about with @MannycartoonStudio this past weekend (see: https://retro.social/@ajroach42/116236626685474151 )

We want to live in a world where independent creative people can make their own things and be successful, without having to borrow mindshare from Disney or the (fascist monsters in the) Ellison family.

And that means that we have to showcase independent creators at every turn, and highlight and celebrate and *pay for* their works.

There's another aspect to that idea, though.

The fan art/fan fiction/mash-up/bootleg phenomenon happens partly because that's how people process the world.

Pop Culture is Folklore. Star Trek fan films are Dante's Inferno.

But a fascist sympathizer owns star trek now, and when we tell Star Trek stories we're allowing a little more of our collective folklore and collective culture, our mindshare, to go to a thing owned by fascists.

(and, certainly, vice versa. Every queer star trek story is an act of defiance, but it's an act of defiance that still requires being versed in a media property owned by shitbags.)

This is not to say "don't make fan fiction", and I fear that's how it reads.

I love fanfiction. I think it's wonderful. I like to see more of it.

I do a lot of what is essentially fan fiction!

But I work with characters from the public domain. Stuff that no one owns, or I guess that everyone owns.

I'm not against the idea of remixing. I love a remix.

I'm against the fact that most modern remixes accidentally serve to keep things owned by Disney and David Ellison in people's brains.

When two independent toy makers make their own versions of Dracula or Frankenstein, or repaint one another's toys in their toy's color scheme, I get hype. No one owns those things they're creating but them, and no one benefits from it but them, and that's sick.

When independent toymakers make another skeletor variation, I also get hype, but I also get a little sad because Universal could step in at any moment and say "I don't like this, you can't do it" and they would have very little recourse.

Fuck a corporate copyright, remix whatever you want, don't feel bad about it, figure out how to make your bread.

That's why, when I make something (like a Sky Pirate dime novel series, or a Space Exploration/Away Mission video game (and podcast series) or a show about hunting bigfoot) I use a cc-by-sa license.

I want people to remix. I want them to do it without fear or real constraint (beyond simply telling the world that it came from something I produced and making it a little easier for folks to find my thing.)

Actively and desperately, I want to see more independent artists and creators embrace more things that don't enrich a distant (often fascist) billionaire, and if they can shine a little more light on one another in the process, all the better.

I wrote a lot about this idea.

I wrote a "manifesto" about it.

https://ajroach42.com/the-small-things-manifesto/

The core idea is that we have to stop giving power to major corporations.

Stop asking for permission, certainly, but also stop working in ways that allow them to gatekeep us, or encourage us to be silent, or push us to the margins.

And, whenever possible, work together by default.

@ajroach42 i agree. Most of the pins I created for my shop are lil self contained ideas not based on anything owned in the larger sense. I miss judged how much storytelling id need to do to sell my notions to people. I tried a few IP swipes and mash ups thinking that's what was holding me back 🙃

Now I use my own original sculpts overtly to showcase other people's creatives. Lol I might be UNWELL! LOL.

#witch #dinosaur #skateboarding #enamelpins #pizza #coffee

@ajroach42 ive got it in me somewhere. I just need focus. I kinda know how I want to tell the stories...focus is the main issue.

#sloth #astronaut #animation

@MannycartoonStudio

I don't think it's focus, or at least I don't think it's *just* focus.

It's also having the right help, and having the right time. Day job's are exhausting, and doing nothing is a whole lot easier than doing something after you spend all day working for other people.

I'm not very focused (as you can see from the number of things we usually have in the works) but I get a lot done (as you can see from the number of things I've done.)

Getting organized and building the discipline to work, regardless of what you're working on goes a long way.

Giving yourself a billion projects to pick between helps with the lack of focus.