The art debate brings up an interesting thought.
I think part of my immediate siding with artists, along with common sense, is that I’ve never seen myself perfectly represented by fanart (I’m gonna speak in a fictionkin context for this). Every icon or image I use is just a cartoony stylized version of what I looked like. In reality, in living person, it’s different in ways art is never going to capture. Fanart is just fun for us to enjoy, and a visually appealing way to quickly express emotion and stimulate different feelings to work through.
It’s a fun exercise, to build a mental image of yourself as a living thing, rather than the flat media representation of you. The width of your torso, the shape of your nose and lips, the boney ridges in your hands, the texture of your hair, all the details. You can notice things you wouldn’t have otherwise. And you’ll start to feel a hell of a lot less attached to fanart. We may be fictionkin, but we aren’t cartoons or anime characters – we are people, we always -were- people, and the media came after. The media belonging to others, and not something we’re entitled to. Be thankful it’s there at all.
