#Learn AI from Beginner | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

8pxl · 8 months ago

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BEGINNERS GUIDE TO BLUESKY

Hiya! Curious about joining bluesky but intimidated by all the features? Already on bluesky but want to learn more? Then welcome to my quick guide on getting started and navigating bluesky!~

What is Bluesky?

it’s a social media site that’s owned by no single person or company. it's aim is to bring back the early days of twitter before bots, elon musk or algorithms took over. Personally I find the site really cozy, wholesome, and engaging. my Bluesky account for example

What’s unique about Bluesky?

→ CUSTOMIZATION: ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎your timeline is very easy to control. There’s tons of options, so be sure to go through each tab in your settings. some options include: turning off autoplay, changing the order in which threaded replies show, changing DM settings, content preferences and lots of visual app settings.

→ MODERATION LISTS: human made, mass blocklists. These are public lists of accounts that when you subscribe to you automatically block or mute everyone in that specific blocklist. A great way to avoid unwanted content, and interactions. ✦ Moderation lists I recommend will be below the cut

→ STARTER PACKS: recommendation lists on who to follow, made by users. You can even curate your own starter pack of recommendations! ✦ Starter pack recommendations will be below the cut

→ FEEDS: public timelines, basically. There are a lot of feeds you can join, or you can even create your own. I made a feed featuring just my pixel art so it doesn’t get cluttered with text posts or other photos in my media tab. ✦ I’ll post feeds I recommend below and link you to a tutorial on how to create your own feed

→ BLOCKING/MUTING: bluesky has a great blocking system. When you block someone they can no longer see, or interact with you. They also have a feature to make your blog inaccessible unless logged in. you can also mute specific people, delete post replies, and even detach your post from a reblog. You can also mute specific words, phrases, tags etc.

→ NSFW: bluesky allows NSFW content, including artwork, porn, lewds etc. They also have a great moderation page to avoid the content completely, censor the content, or show it if you’d wish. ✦ just go to settings > moderation > toggle on NSFW settings and it’ll let you heavily moderate.

→ LABELS: this is a really cool feature on the site, you can subscribe to certain pages that enable a lot of fun/useful labels that help you in different ways! (like pronoun tags, artist tags etc) ✦ Labels to browse will be posted below

→ COMMUNITIES: the vastly diverse communities really feel like the best parts of tumblr. since you can so heavily curate your experience, it can really feel like a calming oasis. Mine is mostly artists, and other creatives.

there’s also a large community of professional artists, art directors, authors, celebrities, and even the best shitposters from twitter. the app really is what you make of it but it’s thriving right now.

RECOMMENDATIONS & LINKS BELOW ⬎

→ MODERATION LISTS:

SPAM/SCAMMERS: SPAMBOTS | BOTS | CONTENT SCRAPERS | CONTENT FARMING

✦ to block or mute everyone in the blocklist at once, click subscribe in the top right corner:

→ STARTER PACKS:

GENERAL: WOMEN OF BSKY | AUTHORS | LGBTQ NEWS

SHITPOSTERS: JUNIPER | JUNIPERv2 | MASTERLIST | SCIENCE SHITPOSTERS

✦ for more niche starter packs, use the search function. search your specific interest and ‘starter pack’ and you’ll find some!

→ FEEDS:

DISCOVER | WHATS TRENDING | MENTIONS | ART | TRENDING ART

THE GRAM: a timeline for exclusively image posts from those you follow. no textposts etc. ONLYPOST: similar to the gram, it shows a timeline of only those you follow. no reposts, just original posts. 📌: a way to bookmark posts. just reply with the pin emoji.

✦ there’s tons of others feeds as well! just use the feed tab and you can browse feeds or search for specific ones.

✦ TUTORIAL ON HOW TO CREATE A CUSTOM FEED FOR YOUR ART/POSTS

→ LABELS:

SKYWATCH: most popular label. Lots of useful labels!

AI Labels: identifies AI users, can also enable hiding the posters.

Pronouns: self explanatory but useful. can add a badge with your pronouns!

✦ you can search for additional label bots on bluesky!

OTHER RECOMMENDATIONS:

✦ EXPIRIENCE ENHANCING TOOLS RECS ✦ CLEARSKY: TRACK BLOCKS AND BLOCKLISTS ✦ SKYFEED: CREATE CUSTOM FEEDS EASILY ✦ use the block function often. do not entertain trolls or hate speech. ✦ as well as starter packs, there’s also lists! lists can be used in the same way to create curated lists of accounts. it’s a good way to keep track of specific genres of posters you’re interested in, and finding new ones! ✦ hashtags: use them! they’re beneficial in boosting your post. you can even link hashtags in your bio making you easier to find. another method of making you more visible is if you post an ‘interest’ post! basically just type things you’re interested in and it’ll help people find you / vice versa ! ✦ update your profile first thing, like bio avi etc. make a small post so people know you're real. interact and engage! the communities there are so welcoming!

I think that covers abt everything i wanted to cover! Hope this was helpful and thanks for reading lol

#bluesky #bluesky starter pack #bluesky social #bsky.app #bsky #bsky social #bluesky tutorial #bluesky walkthrough #bluesky app #ooooooooook that took forever lol hope its useful!!!!!!!!#long post #text post

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health-care-products-24 · 1 year ago

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From Beginner to Building Brains: A Review of "The Complete Python, Machine Learning, AI Mega Bundle+"

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#The Complete Python #Machine Learning #AI Mega Bundle+#From Beginner to Building Brains

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what-even-is-thiss · 2 months ago

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Free or Cheap Mandarin Chinese Learning Resources Because You Can't Let John Cena One Up You Again

I will update this list as I learn of any more useful ones. If you want general language learning resources check out this other post. This list is Mandarin specific. Find lists for other specific languages here.

For the purposes of this list "free" means something that is either totally free or has a useful free tier. "Cheap" is a subscription under $10USD a month, a software license or lifetime membership purchase under $100USD, or a book under $30USD. If you want to suggest a resource for this list please suggest ones in that price range that are of decent quality and not AI generated.

WEBSITES

Dong Chinese - A website with lessons, a pinyin guide, a dictionary, and various videos and practice tests. With a free account you're only allowed to do one lesson every 12 hours. To do as many lessons as quickly as you want it costs $10 a month or $80 a year.

Domino Chinese - A paid website with video based lessons from absolute beginner to college level. They claim they can get you ready to get a job in China. They offer a free trial and after that it's $5 a month or pay what you can if you want to support their company.

Chinese Education Center - This is an organization that gives information to students interested in studying abroad in China. They have free text based lessons for beginners on vocab, grammar, and handwriting.

Pleco Dictionary App - This is a very popular dictionary app on both iOS and Android. It has a basic dictionary available for free but other features can be purchased individually or in bundles. A full bundle that has what most people would want is about $30 but there are more expensive options with more features.

MIT OpenCourseWare Chinese 1 2 3 4 5 6 - These are actual archived online courses from MIT available for free. You will likely need to download them onto your computer.

Learn Chinese Web Application From Cambridge University - This is a free downloadable file with Mandarin lessons in a PC application. There's a different program for beginner and intermediate.

Learn Chinese Everyday - A free word a day website. Every day the website posts a different word with pronunciation, stroke order, and example sentences. There's also an archive of free downloadable worksheets related to previous words featured on the website.

Chinese Boost - A free website and blog with beginner lessons and articles about tips and various resources to try.

Chinese Forums - An old fashioned forum website for people learning Chinese to share resources and ask questions. It's still active as of when I'm making this list.

Du Chinese - A free website and an app with lessons and reading and listening practice with dual transcripts in both Chinese characters and pinyin. They also have an English language blog with tips, lessons, and information on Chinese culture.

YOUTUBE CHANNELS

Chinese For Us - A channel that provides free video lessons for beginners. The channel is mostly in English.

Herbin Mandarin - A channel with a variety of lessons for beginners. The channel hasn't uploaded in a while but there's a fairly large archive of lessons to watch. The channel is mainly in English.

Mandarin Blueprint - This channel is by a couple of guys who also run a paid website. However on their YouTube channel there's a lot of free videos with tips about how to go about learning Chinese, pronunciation and writing tips, and things of that nature. The channel is mainly in English.

Blabla Chinese - A comprehensible input channel with content about a variety of topics for beginner to intermediate. The video descriptions are in English but the videos themselves are all in Mandarin.

Lazy Chinese - A channel aimed at intermediate learners with videos on general topics, grammar, and culture. They also have a podcast. The channel has English descriptions but the videos are all in Mandarin.

Easy Mandarin - A channel associated with the easy languages network that interviews people on the street in Taiwan about everyday topics. The channel has on screen subtitles in traditional characters, pinyin, and English.

StickynoteChinese - A relatively new channel but it already has a decent amount of videos. Jun makes videos about culture and personal vlogs in Mandarin. The channel is aimed at learners from beginner to upper intermediate.

Story Learning Chinese With Annie - A comprehensible input channel almost entirely in Mandarin. The host teaches through stories and also makes videos about useful vocabulary words and cultural topics. It appears to be aimed at beginner to intermediate learners.

LinguaFlow Chinese - Another relatively new channel but they seem to be making new videos regularly. The channel is aimed at beginner to intermediate learners and teaches and provides listening practice with video games. The channel is mostly in Mandarin.

Lala Chinese - A channel with tips on grammar and pronunciation with the occasional vlog for listening practice, aimed at upper beginner to upper intermediate learners. Some videos are all in Mandarin while others use a mix of English and Mandarin. Most videos have dual language subtitles onscreen.

Grace Mandarin Chinese - A channel with general information on the nitty gritty of grammar, pronunciation, common mistakes, slang, and useful phrases for different levels of learners. Most videos are in English but some videos are fully in Mandarin.

READING PRACTICE

HSK Reading - A free website with articles sorted into beginner, intermediate, and advanced. Every article has comprehension questions. You can also mouse over individual characters and see the pinyin and possible translations. The website is in a mix of English and Mandarin.

chinesegradedreader.com - A free website with free short readings up to HSK level 3 or upper intermediate. Each article has an explaination at the beginning of key vocabulary words in English and you can mouse over individual characters to get translations.

Mandarin Companion - This company sells books that are translated and simplified versions of classic novels as well as a few originals for absolute beginners. They are available in both traditional and simplified Chinese. Their levels don't appear to be aligned with any HSK curriculum but even their most advanced books don't have more than 500 individual characters according to them so they're likely mostly for beginners to advanced beginners. New paperbacks seem to usually be $14 but cheaper used copies, digital copies, and audiobooks are also available. The website is in English.

Graded Chinese Readers - Not to be confused with chinese graded reader, this is a website with information on different graded readers by different authors and different companies. The website tells you what the book is about, what level it's for, whether or not it uses traditional or simplified characters, and gives you a link to where you can buy it on amazon. They seem to have links to books all the way from HSK 1 or beginner to HSK 6 or college level. A lot of the books seem to be under $10 but as they're all from different companies your mileage and availability may vary. The website is in English.

Mandarin Bean - A website with free articles about Chinese culture and different short stories. Articles are sorted by HSK level from 1 to 6. The website also lets you switch between traditional or simplified characters and turn the pinyin on or off. It also lets you mouse over characters to get a translation. They have a relatively expensive paid tier that gives you access to video lessons and HSK practice tests and lesson notes but all articles and basic features on the site are available on the free tier without an account. The website is in a mix of Mandarin and English.

Mandarin Daily News - This is a daily newspaper from Taiwan made for children so the articles are simpler, have illustrations and pictures, and use easier characters. As it's for native speaker kids in Taiwan, the site is completely in traditional Chinese.

New Tong Wen Tang for Chrome or Firefox - This is a free browser extension that can convert traditional characters to simplified characters or vice versa without a need to copy and paste things into a separate website.

PODCASTS

Melnyks Chinese - A podcast for more traditional audio Mandarin Chinese lessons for English speakers. The link I gave is to their website but they're also available on most podcatcher apps.

Chinese Track - Another podcast aimed at learning Mandarin but this one goes a bit higher into lower intermediate levels.

Dimsum Mandarin - An older podcast archive of 30 episodes of dialogues aimed at beginner to upper beginner learners.

Dashu Mandarin - A podcast run by three Chinese teachers aimed at intermediate learners that discusses culture topics and gives tips for Mandarin learners. There are also male teachers on the podcast which I'm told is relatively rare for Mandarin material aimed at learners and could help if you're struggling to understand more masculine speaking patterns.

Learning Chinese Through Stories - A storytelling podcast mostly aimed at intermediate learners but they do have some episodes aimed at beginner or advanced learners. They have various paid tiers for extra episodes and learning material on their patreon but there's still a large amount of episodes available for free.

Haike Mandarin - A conversational podcast in Taiwanese Mandarin for intermediate learners. Every episode discusses a different everyday topic. The episode descriptions and titles are entirely in traditional Chinese characters. The hosts provide free transcripts and other materials related to the episodes on their blog.

Learn Chinese With Ju - A vocabulary building podcast aimed at intermediate learners. The podcast episodes are short at around 4-6 minutes and the host speaks about a variety of topics in a mix of English and Mandarin.

xiaoyuzhou fm - An iOS app for native speakers to listen to podcasts. I’m told it has a number of interactive features. If you have an android device you’ll likely have to do some finagling with third party apps to get this one working. As this app is for native speakers, the app is entirely in simplified Chinese.

Apple Podcast directories for Taiwan and China - Podcast pages directed towards users in those countries/regions.

SELF STUDY TEXTBOOKS AND DICTIONARIES

Learning Chinese Characters - This series is sorted by HSK levels and each volume in the series is around $11. Used and digital copies can also be found for cheaper.

HSK Standard Course Textbooks - These are textbooks designed around official Chinese government affiliated HSK tests including all of the simplified characters, grammar, vocab, and cultural knowledge necessary to pass each test. There are six books in total and the books prices range wildly depending on the level and the seller, going for as cheap as $14 to as expensive as $60 though as these are pretty common textbooks, used copies and cheaper online shops can be found with a little digging. The one I have linked to here is the HSK 1 textbook. Some textbook sellers will also bundle them with a workbook, some will not.

Chinese Made Easy for Kids - Although this series is aimed at children, I'm told that it's also very useful for adult beginners. There's a large number of textbooks and workbooks at various levels. The site I linked to is aimed at people placing orders in Hong Kong but the individual pages also have links to various other websites you can buy them from in other countries. The books range from $20-$35 but I include them because some of them are cheaper and they seem really easy to find used copies of.

Reading and Writing Chinese - This book contains guides on all 2300 characters in the HSK texts as of 2013. Although it is slightly outdated, it's still useful for self study and is usually less than $20 new. Used copies are also easy to find.

Basic Chinese by Mcgraw Hill - This book also fuctions as a workbook so good quality used copies can be difficult to find. The book is usually $20 but it also often goes on sale on Amazon and they also sell a cheaper digital copy.

Chinese Grammar: A beginner's guide to basic structures - This book goes over beginner level grammar concepts and can usually be found for less than $20 in print or as low as $2 for a digital copy.

Collins Mandarin Chinese Visual Dictionary - A bilingual English/Mandarin visual dictionary that comes with a link to online audio files. A new copy goes for about $14 but used and digital versions are available.

Merriam-Webster's Chinese to English Dictionary - In general Merriam Websters usually has the cheapest decent quality multilingual dictionaries out there, including for Mandarin Chinese. New editions usually go for around $8 each while older editions are usually even cheaper.

(at the end of the list here I will say I had a difficult time finding tv series specifically made for learners of Mandarin Chinese so if you know of any that are made for teenage or adult learners or are kids shows that would be interesting to adults and are free to watch without a subscription please let me know and I will add them to the list. There's a lot of Mandarin language TV that's easy to find but what I'm specifically interested in for these lists are free to watch series made for learners and/or easy to understand kids shows originally made in the target language that are free and easy to access worldwide)

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kxsagi · 3 months ago

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Helloooooooo

Pretty please can I get reader learning the blk boys language. (Like a year into learning it and they're pretty fluent) Then telling them they only know a few phrases. The boys messing with reader and later reader gets them back. I thought of Sae with Spanish, Rin with Japanese, and Kaiser with German.

I just read your post where reader gets lost and those 3 help them. I loved it. It was sooooo good. I feel like Kaiser would mess with reader hardcore.

“𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐮𝐚𝐥 𝐛𝐢𝐦𝐛𝐨 𝐛𝐞𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐨𝐫”

a/n: i can only speak japanese so the other two languages made me resort to AI 😭

english translations of each title: “baby girl, you understand that right?” (german), “i don’t understand, but tell me more” (spanish), and “i don’t know, but your voice is cute/wakannai demo kimi no koe kawaii” (japanese).

ft. kaiser michael, itoshi sae, itoshi rin

𝐤𝐚𝐢𝐬𝐞𝐫 𝐦𝐢𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐞𝐥 – “𝐛𝐚𝐛𝐲 𝐠𝐢𝐫𝐥, 𝐝𝐮 𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐡𝐬𝐭 𝐝𝐚𝐬, 𝐨𝐝𝐞𝐫?”

you sip your iced coffee slowly, perched on the edge of kaiser’s kitchen counter, pretending not to understand a single word he’s saying as he rifles through a drawer, muttering to himself in rapid-fire german.

“wo ist mein verdammter pass? (where is my damn passport?)” he grumbles. “er war genau hier, ich schwöre (it was right here, i swear)–”

you blink innocently. “what?”

kaiser turns, flashing you a sly grin. “you didn’t catch that?” he asks, far too casually.

you shake your head. “i told you, i only know, like... ich liebe dich and wo ist die toilette, and that’s about it.”

he places a hand dramatically on his chest. “you only know i love you and where’s the toilet? wow. romantic and practical.”

you giggle, but the second he turns back around, you narrow your eyes. you’ve been studying german for a year. you’ve aced listening comprehension. you just watched three episodes of a german show without subtitles. you could pass for a confused exchange student in berlin right now if needed. but he doesn’t know that.

and michael kaiser – cocky, annoying, too-pretty michael – needs to be humbled.

and so it begins with deliberate mistakes.

“hey, what does du bist mein schatz mean?” you ask sweetly one night while cuddling on the couch.

“it means you’re my treasure,” he replies, beaming.

you blink at him. “oh. i thought it meant... ‘you smell like cheese.’”

he chokes. “where the hell did you get that?!”

“i dunno,” you shrug. “tik tok?”

it spirals from there. kaiser starts testing you like a smug little menace. whispers things like “zieh dich aus” (take off your clothes) and then chuckles when you pretend to think he’s asking for snacks.

“you know, for someone who’s been in germany for months,” he says one morning, “you’re oddly helpless.”

“i’m cute. i don’t have to be smart,” you reply.

“fair point,” he nods.

until one day, you flip the script.

he walks in, phone in hand, ranting about some teammate being late to practice.

“weißt du, ich schwöre, ich bin von idioten umgeben (i swear, i’m surrounded by idiots),” he huffs.

you look up from the couch. “ja, das stimmt (yeah, that’s true).”

kaiser freezes mid-step. “what did you just say?”

you blink innocently. “oh. just agreeing. sounds like you’re surrounded by idiots.”

he squints, slowly lowering his phone. “you understood that?”

“i understood all of it,” you say, grinning. “especially the part yesterday where you told your coach i was hot. thanks for that.”

he sputters. “you! how long?!”

you lean in, voice low. “let’s just say... du bist nicht der einzige, der spielen kann, schatz (you’re not the only one who can play games, babe).”

his mouth drops open. you’ve never seen him so scandalized. so shook. so deeply, deeply humbled.

you win.

𝐢𝐭𝐨𝐬𝐡𝐢 𝐬𝐚𝐞 – “𝐧𝐨 𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐨, 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐨 𝐝𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐦á𝐬”

sae itoshi is obvious when he’s being a menace.

it’s the tiniest smirk. the smallest tilt of his head. and it’s always followed by a sentence in spanish that is way too fast and absolutely not beginner-level.

“perdón (sorry)?” you ask, batting your lashes.

he leans closer. “aw. too fast for you?”

you sigh dramatically. “you know i only know, like, five words.”

“and you choose to date a man who speaks spanish?”

“for the aesthetics,” you reply. “and the thighs.”

he laughs. “at least you’re honest.”

except here’s the thing.

you’ve been learning spanish in secret for a whole year. private classes. podcasts. novelas. everything. you just like watching sae get smug about it.

“te ves muy guapa hoy (you look really pretty today),” he says casually over breakfast.

you glance at him. “no idea what that means, but thank you.”

“mhm,” he hums, sipping his coffee, smug levels: critical.

so one day, when he mutters under his breath “dios, esta chica me vuelve loco (god, this girl drives me crazy)”, thinking you won’t understand, you grin.

“aw, i drive you crazy?”

his spoon clinks against the bowl. slowly, he turns. “you understood that?”

“mmmhm,” you say, leaning on your elbows. “also, i heard what you said on the phone with rin last week. something about how you’re ‘so whipped you’d move to mars’?”

he stares. “you–how long have you understood spanish?”

you raise an eyebrow. “suficiente para saber que eres un payaso (enough to know you’re a clown).”

he narrows his eyes. “so this is revenge.”

“maybe,” you chirp. “maybe i’ll just call your mom and tell her what you really said about her cooking.”

sae drops his spoon.

you win.

𝐢𝐭𝐨𝐬𝐡𝐢 𝐫𝐢𝐧 – “わかんない。でも君の声かわいい。”

you thought you could get away with it.

“sorry, i only know basic stuff,” you lie, twirling your straw in your drink as rin talks to the waitress in quick japanese.

he looks at you. “like what?”

“uh… konnichiwa? arigatou? and suki desu? that’s about it.”

he shrugs. “that’s enough.”

but you see it – the tiniest glint of mischief behind his deadpan stare. the itoshi brothers are quiet menaces, and rin’s no different.

it starts small.

he’ll murmur something under his breath while brushing your hair out of your eyes. or whisper something in japanese when he thinks you’re asleep.

“かわいすぎる (kawaisugiru/too cute),” he says one night. “うざいくらいに (uzaikuraini/annoyingly so).”

you pretend to be asleep. your eye twitches. he just called you annoyingly cute. and he thinks you don’t know.

interesting.

so, naturally, you begin collecting evidence.

“君は俺の (kimi wa ore no),” he mutters one day, tugging you close. you’re mine.

“hmm?” you blink.

“nothing,” he replies, far too smug.

you let it slide. for now.

but your revenge is poetic.

you wait until dinner with his teammates. they’re all chatting in japanese, and you just sit there, nodding along like you don’t understand a thing, until one of them jokes about rin being unusually soft with you.

“ほんと、彼女の前だけ甘いよな (honto, kanojo no mae dake amai yo na/seriously, he’s only sweet in front of her),” one of them says. rin snorts.

you glance up sweetly. “あ、そう？じゃあ、彼の前で甘くしようかな。(a, sou? jaa, kare no mae de amakushiyou kana/oh, really? then i’ll just be sweet in front of him too.)”

rin chokes. the entire table goes silent.

you sip your tea. “what? did i say it wrong?”

he turns to you, completely betrayed. “you speak japanese.”

“a little,” you shrug. “but i’m really good at understanding liars.”

he stares. “how long?”

“long enough to know you talk to my dog in a baby voice when you think i’m not home.”

you win.

#blue lock #blue lock x reader #bllk #bllk x reader #rin itoshi x reader #itoshi rin x reader #itoshi sae x reader #sae itoshi x reader #michael kaiser x reader #kaiser michael x reader #bilingual bimbo behavior

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cosmos-kitty · 3 months ago

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I'm a little late to the party, but here's my version of the artist starter pack trend! ✨

For anyone not up to speed, recently there's been a trend of people using AI to create personalised action figures of themselves - and artists have started fighting back by making their own hand-drawn versions, so I'm joining in with my own (featuring my artist mascot!)

I think most people are aware by now of the many current ethical issues with AI image generation, and how much of a threat to the creative industry it is that corporations are increasingly eager to cut creatives out of the equation at every opportunity to improve their bottom line.

But without getting too much into all of that, I just wanted to say that if you're a beginner to drawing, or maybe you've never even picked up a pencil before, and you're considering using AI - I promise that if you put your time and energy into learning something creative, it will be 100x more fulfilling and rewarding than mindlessly consuming whatever tech companies are throwing your way every waking moment. I really do think that finding something you're passionate about is what life is all about, so I can't think of anything worse than having that one quintessentially human part of myself relegated to typing out prompts over and over purely for the sake of profit.

The fantastic thing about art is that it's like a fingerprint of the person making it, no two prints are exactly alike. The countless different aspects of what makes someone an individual all culminates into their work. You could pick up a random book off a shelf, get into a certain type of music, or see some graffiti on a wall in a street you happened to walk down, and it could completely change the trajectory of your art. Add all of those creative minds together and you get all of the wonderful work that we've all watched, read, played, and listened to throughout our lives - without that ability to explore ideas and innovate, there wouldn't have even been anything for AI to copy from to begin with.

#art #artists on tumblr #illustration #digital art

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tofupixel · 1 year ago

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TofuPixel Links + FAQ - Commissions Open!

🌟 Building a game: @wishlings 🌠

🎨 My Portfolio

Support me: 💜 Tip Me 💜 Digital Store 💜 Print Store 💜 Game Assets 💜 Stickers + Merch

Socials: Bluesky | Cara | GameJolt | TikTok

Yes you can use / cross-stitch my work for personal use! <3

🎨 Pixel Art Beginner Guide

Hello, I'm Tofu, a pixel artist based in England. I work full-time doing pixel illustrations or game-art. I started learning in my early 20s, so no it's not too late for you!

I run a 7k+ member Discord server called Cafe Dot, where we host events like gesture drawing and portrait club.

I currently have Good Omens brainrot so expect some fanart on this blog. I also occasionally do/reblog horror art so be mindful of that!

Due to so much AI nonsense on every platform, all my public work will be filtered/edited with anti-AI scraping techniques. Supporters on my Ko-Fi can see unfiltered work and also download it.

🌸 Want to learn how to do pixel art? Check my tutorial tag!

Other tags:

tutorial (not pixel specific)

my art

follow (artists i recommend)

🌟Free Stuff!!!

❔FAQ

What app do you use? I use Aseprite on PC and occasionally Pixquare on iOS (use code tofu for 30% off Pixquare!! <3) Free alternative: Libresprite on PC

Why does your art look so crunchy / compressed? Glaze

How did you learn pixel art? I first started out watching MortMort and making tiny sprites. Then once I started getting interested in landscapes/environment art, I did many, many Studio Ghibli studies.

How can I also protect my art? You can use Glaze and Nightshade- Glaze protects against Img2Img style copying, and Nightshade poisons the data so the AI thinks it's the opposite of what it actually is. There is a lot of misinformation going around (likely from pro-AI groups) so do your own research too! If you're a pixel artist you can also tilt or blur your art after upscaling, which will make it near useless to AI models (or regular thieves) once downscaled again.

Feel free to send me an ask if there's anything you want to know! I am always happy to help beginners :--3

#tutorial #pixel art tutorial #dont mind me just making a new pinned post #teeth

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novella-november · 9 months ago

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See, here's the thing about generative AI:

I will always, always prefer to read the beginner works of a young writer that could use some editing advice, over anything a predictive text generator can spit out no matter how high of a "quality" it spits out.

I will always be more interested in reading a fanfiction or original story written by a kid who doesn't know you're meant to separate different dialogues into their own paragraphs, over anything a generative ai creates.

I will happily read a story where dialogue isn't always capitalized and has some grammar mistakes that was written by a person over anything a computer compiles.

Why?

Because *why should I care about something someone didn't even care enough to write themselves?*

Humans have been storytellers since the dawn of humankind, and while it presents itself in different ways, almost everyone has stories they want to tell, and it takes effort and care and a desire to create to put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard or speech to text to actually start writing that story out, let alone share it for others to read!

If a kid writes a story where all the dialogue is crammed in the same paragraph and missing some punctuation, it's because they're still learning the ropes and are eager to share their imagination with the world even if its not perfect.

If someone gets generative AI to make an entire novel for them, copying and pasting chunks of text into a document as it generates them, then markets that "novel" as being written by a real human person and recruits a bunch of people to leave fake good reviews on the work praising the quality of the book to trick real humans into thinking they're getting a legitimate novel.... Tell me, why on earth would anyone actually want to read that "novel" outside of morbid curiosity?

There's a few people you'll see in the anti-ai tags complaining about "people being dangerously close to saying art is a unique characteristic of the divine human soul" and like...

... Super dramatic wording there to make people sound ridiculous, but yeah, actually, people enjoy art made by humans because humans who make art are sharing their passion with others.

People enjoy art made by animals because it is fascinating and fun to find patterns in the paint left by paw prints or the movements of an elephants trunk.

Before Generative AI became the officially sanctioned "Plagiarism Machine for Billionaires to Avoid Paying Artists while Literally Stealing all those artists works" people enjoyed random computer-generated art because, like animals, it is fascinating and fun to see something so different and alien create something that we can find meaning in.

But now, when Generative AI spits out a work that at first appears to be a veritable masterpiece of art depicting a winged Valkyrie plunging from the skies with a spear held aloft, you know that anything you find beautiful or agreeable in this visual media has been copied from an actual human artist who did not consent or doesn't even know that their art has been fed into the Plagiarism Machine.

Now, when Generative AI spits out a written work featuring fandom-made tropes and concepts like Alpha Beta Omega dyanamics, you know that you favorite fanfiction website(s) have probably all been scraped and that the unpaid labours of passion by millions of people, including minors, have been scraped by the Plagiarism Machine and can now be used to make money for anyone with the time and patience to sit and have the Plagarism Machine generate stories a chunk at a time and then go on to sell those stories to anyone unfortunate enough to fall for the scam,

all while you have no way to remove your works from the existing training data and no way to stop any future works you post be put in, either.

Generative AI wouldn't be a problem if it was exclusively trained on Public Domain works for each country and if it was freely available to anyone in that country (since different countries have different copyright laws)

But its not.

Because Generative AI is made by billionaires who are going around saying "if you posted it on the Internet at any point, it is fair game for us to take and profit off," and anyone looking to make a quick buck can start churning out stolen slop and marketing it online on trusted retailers, including generating extremely dangerous books like foraging guides or how to combine cleaning chemicals for a spotless home, etc.

Generative AI is nothing but the works of actual humans stolen by giant corporations looking for profit, even works that the original creators can't even make money off of themselves, like fanfiction or fanart.

And I will always, always prefer to read "fanfiction written by a 13 year old" over "stolen and mashed together works from Predictive Text with a scifi name slapped on it", because at least the fanfiction by a kid actually has *passion and drive* behind its creation.

#anti ai #not writing #well it is kinda #anti generative ai #long post

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nipuni · 3 months ago

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Hi Nipuni, I hope you’re doing well. I’m just curious what’s your opinion about the rampant use of AI in art lately especially how it impacts artists and possibly stealing artists work to train it. As a fellow artist I’m curious of what other artists would think of this. I’ve seen many beginners artists losing hope in pursuing art because of AI and it truly breaks my heart. I hope artists wouls stay doing art no matter what because it’s very important and their art will always be valuable no matter what. By the way, you don’t have to reply to this if this particular topic is not something you’re comfortable with. I love your art so much and I wish all the best for you, you are an incredible artist and I love the energy you always put into your art🫶

Hello, I am doing great! I hope you are too! ☺️ I'm so sorry I'm so late to reply. I've been following the generative AI conversation on and off for so long now and I have yet to find a single argument that justifies it's cost. I don't think I have much to add that hasn't been said before. I think it is unethical, unsustainable, irresponsible, dangerous, harmful, theft, etc. It is neither intelligent nor generative, it doesn't think, it can't reason it's guided guessing based on statistics and pattern recognition. it's not creating anything new either it's just pulling from a database of stolen human content and mashing it together, it can't be trained on itself either so it needs constant human input too. I just don't see the point? 🫠 It's some kind of gimmicky toy made to appeal to the most annoying people imaginable by the most annoying people imaginable to profit from and at immense cost to everyone else. It's negatively impacting every creative industry in every way and even affecting the way we learn, communicate and engage with media. It's invading everything and making it objectively worse lmao. It's also dangerous in countless ways. An environmental disaster too and for what!! aaaaa It feels like a huge cultural setback and technological dead end and it's so depressing. I wish I had something positive to add after so much ranting but I don't 😔 The impact of this on creative fields among others is undeniable and I fear will make things harder for a while but I'd like to think that it's still early days and there are so many people fighting to regulate this mess and we all can help by advocating and boycotting at the very least.

If anything this whole debacle has made me examine my relationship with art more deeply and I realize I love the process of making art more than I love the result. The space between idea and finished piece that is all me, I'm in there!! and I love it there!! I can't see myself doing anything else or relegating this part. This will change things at a societal and economical level but people will always make art. I don't know where I'm going with this, I don't think the philosophical is a good angle to center the conversation on either, but I guess it's a comfort 😭 'In the dark times Will there also be singing? Yes, there will also be singing. About the dark times.' poem comes to mind

This reply got away from me oh my god sjfkhg I'm focusing on the art side of things here of course but I could go on about the damage to plenty of other fields but I don't feel qualified enough aaaa anyway Thank you so much for the kind words you are very sweet and I hope you don't let all this discourage you 🥺❤️ we will be alright!!

#nips replies

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not-terezi-pyrope · 2 months ago

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AI continues to be useful, annoying everyone

Okay, look - as much as I've been fairly on the side of "this is actually a pretty incredible technology that does have lots of actual practical uses if used correctly and with knowledge of its shortfalls" throughout the ongoing "AI era", I must admit - I don't use it as a tool too much myself.

I am all too aware of how small errors can slip in here and there, even in output that seems above the level, and, perhaps more importantly, I still have a bit of that personal pride in being able to do things myself! I like the feeling that I have learned a skill, done research on how to do a thing and then deployed that knowledge to get the result I want. It's the bread and butter of working in tech, after all.

But here's the thing, once you move beyond beginner level Python courses and well-documented windows applications. There will often be times when you will want to achieve a very particular thing, which involves working with a specialist application. This will usually be an application written for domain experts of this specialization, and so it will not be user-friendly, and it will certainly not be "outsider-friendly".

So you will download the application. Maybe it's on the command line, has some light scripting involved in a language you've never used, or just has a byzantine shorthand command structure. There is a reference document - thankfully the authors are not that insane - but there are very few examples, and none doing exactly what you want. In order to do the useful thing you want to do, they expect you to understand how the application/platform/scripting language works, to the extent that you can apply it in a novel context.

Which is all fine and well, and normally I would not recommend anybody use a tool at length unless they have taken the time to understand it to the degree at which they know what they are doing. Except I do not wish to use the tool at length, I wish to do one, singular operation, as part of a larger project, and then never touch it again. It is unfortunately not worth my time for me to sink a few hours into learning a technology that you will use once for twenty seconds and then never again.

So you spend time scouring the specialist forums, pulling up a few syntax examples you find randomly of their code and trying to string together the example commands in the docs. If you're lucky, and the syntax has enough in common with something you're familiar with, you should be able to bodge together something that works in 15-20 minutes.

But if you're not lucky, the next step would have been signing up to that forum, or making a post on that subreddit, creating a thread called "Hey, newbie here, needing help with..." and then waiting 24-48 hours to hear back from somebody probably some years-deep veteran looking down on you with scorn for not having put in the effort to learn their Thing, setting aside the fact that you have no reason to normally. It's annoying, disruptive, and takes time.

Now I can ask ChatGPT, and it will have ingested all those docs, all those forums, and it will give you a correct answer in 20 seconds about what you were doing wrong. Because friends, this is where a powerful attention model excels, because you are not asking it to manage a complex system, but to collate complex sources into a simple synthesis. The LLM has already trained in this inference, and it can reproduce it in the blink of an eye, and then deliver information about this inference in the form of a user dialog.

When people say that AI is the future of tutoring, this is what it means. Instead of waiting days to get a reply from a bored human expert, the machine knowledge blender has already got it ready to retrieve via a natural language query, with all the followup Q&A to expand your own knowledge you could desire. And the great thing about applying this to code or scripting syntax is that you can immediately verify whether the output is correct but running it and seeing if it performs as expected, so a lot of the danger is reduced (not that any modern mainstream attention model is likely to make a mistake on something as simple a single line command unless it's something barely documented online, that is).

It's incredibly useful, and it outdoes the capacity of any individual human researcher, as well as the latency of existing human experts. That's something you can't argue we've ever had better before, in any context, and it's something you can actively make use of today. And I will, because it's too good not to - despite my pride.

#not-terezi-speaks #ai #programming

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whumpgifathon · 1 month ago

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Hello! And welcome to the whump gifmaking challenge! I'm your host @aceofwhump and I'm excited to bring another year of a whump challenge specifically created with gifmakers and visual artists in mind.

The challenge begins in August!

Rules:

All gifs posted must be made by you. Do not just post gifs using the gif keyboard and claim them as yours and do not repost other people’s gifs. No AI-generated content please.

Various mediums are welcome! So long as the visual art aspect is the focus you can make whatever you want. Yes this is primarily a gifmaking challenge so everything is geared towards that but any visual art is welcome. If you draw, make moodboards, edits, videos, etc you’re welcome to participate!

You can use the prompts however you like. There is no wrong way to use a prompt. Feel free to interpret them however you wish. If you think it counts as whump? It's whump! Make it! Angst, comfort, emotional whump, small things, big things, it all counts so no need to over think it.

Tag all potential triggers (things like emeto, gore, nsfw, blood, eye whump, rape/noncon, etc.) When in doubt, tag it.

Tags to use when posting so I can find your ppst: #whumpedit, #whumpgifathon, #whump gifs

Please try to include the show/movie title, character names, and episode number (if applicable) somewhere either in your tags or in the post caption. This way anyone interested in watching it can find it easily.

An example of a way you can caption your gifsets:

@whumpgifathon | Day #: "prompt description"Show/Movie title, episode number, character name

2025 Prompt List

(edited to include day 24 which I somehow left out the first time)

A text version of the prompt list can be found below the read more:

Whump Gifathon - August 2025 Prompt List

Day 1: A Whumper’s Toolbox

Needles | Crow Bar | Baseball Bat

Day 2: Accidental Whumping

Falling | A Hard Whack | Broken Glass

Day 3: Space: The Final Frontier

Spacesuit | Isolation | Hull Breach

Day 4: Emotions Are Overwhelming

Fetal Position | Grief | Panic Attack

Day 5: How Did We Get Ourselves Into This Situation?

Sports Injury | Captivity | Bullying

Day 6: Skills/Theme - Tiny Details

Zoom in, show us those tiny whump things that give you whumperflies. Eye fluttering closed? Bruising? A bandage peeking out? Shaking hands? Tear tracks? What's your favorite? Show us!

Day 7: Say What Now?

“Are you okay?” | “I don’t feel good.” | “I got you”

Day 8: We Didn’t Start the Fire

Burns | High Fever | Smoke Inhalation

Day 9: You Should Probably Get That Looked At

Self Care | Broken Bones | Bleeding

Day 10 : All Tied Up With Nowhere to Go

Ropes | Shackled | Pinned Down

Day 11: The Tortured Whumpees Department

Waterboarding | Whipped | Drugged

Day 12: Vulnerability

Scar Reveal | Hidden Injury | Laid Bare

Day 13: Skills/Theme - Hold Your Positions!

Today is all about stress positions! Every whumper loves a good stress position but I’m sure we all have our favorites. Is it being hung from the ceiling by their wrists? Or maybe having them kneel down with a rope around their neck to hold them up? Or having their arms tied to a pole so they’re stretched to the sides? Show us your favorite one!

Day 14: Try a Little Tenderness

Comfort | Help to Walk | Blankets

Day 15: “You’re Safe Now.”

Rescue | Dragged to Safety | Protective

Day 16: I Don’t Feel So Good

Passing Out | Throwing Up | Dizziness

Day 17: Aesthetic

Covered in blood | Bruises | Tear Stained

Day 18: Hospital

Needing Oxygen | Coma | Bedside Vigil

Day 19: Skills/Theme - Gif making!

Today we’re gonna showcase our gifmaking skills. Whether you’re a beginner or long time gifmaker this is the day to learn something new or to practice something you think you can improve on. Coloring? Subtitles? Blending? Text animation? Overlays? Background coloring? What do you want to show? What do you want to learn? What do you want to try?

Day 20: Language Barrier

Harsh Words | Different Languages | Alone

Day 21: Rumors of My Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated.

Resurrection | Presumed Dead | On The Run

Day 22: There is No “I” in Team

Team Member Whump | Forced to Watch | Search and Rescue

Day 23: I Put a Spell On You

Magical Healing | Cursed | Witch Burning

Day 24: Get Me Out Of Here

Buried Alive | Trunk of a Car | Collapsed Building

Day 25: Skills/Theme - Underappreciated Tropes

We all have our favorite tropes that don’t get enough attention right? Here’s your chance! Give them all the attention and love!

Day 26: Environmental Disasters

Earthquake | Hurricane | Wildfire

Day 27: It’s Just Temporary (Maybe)

Amnesia | Blinded | Hearing Loss

Day 28: A Whumper’s Delight

Caged | Stabbed | Manhandled/Grabbed

Day 29: The Past Comes Back To Haunt You

PTSD | Terrible Childhood | Flashbacks

Day 30: Skills/Theme - Location, Location, Location

The place of the whumping is just as important as the whump itself. What’s your favorite? A forest? Hospital? Abandonded buidling? The ocean?

Day 31:

Beaten | Gunshot | Collapsing

Alternate Prompts:

Caught in an Explosion

Animal Trap

Coughing

Handcuffed

CPR

Knife to the Throat

Flinching

Withdrawal

Ice Pack

Hanging off a Ledge

#whumpgifathon #whumpedit #whump gifs #whump event #info post #rules list #whumpgifathon rules #pinned post #mod post #whump #whump community #whump events #whumpblr #gif making challenge #gifmaking #whump gif event #prompt challenge #whump prompt challenge

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just-a-gamer-daydeamer-girl · 2 months ago

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My DCMK fanfic rec list (mostly detective Conan stuff)

I’ve got a weird love/hate relationship with detective Conan/magic Kaito . But here are my fic recommendations. I wrote none of these!

The Case of the Hidden Epidemic - a strange outbreak has been effecting the youths in Tokyo, it’s soon found out that this disease was manufactured! Love how Conan is pushed to his absolute limit. Thankfully he’s got quite a support group. Secrets will be revealed.

The Magic Bullet Murder Case - sequel to the fic above, a murder has occurred at a tournament Ran participated in. The main suspect? A high school student by the name Kuroba Kaito, who has a knack for magic tricks.

The Case of the Haywire Heist - final part of the hidden epidemic trilogy, kaito kid is doing heist in Hattori’s territory, Conan’s there too, but not to solve or chase down the thief…. But to confront him. But things go awry, and blood gets stained on Kaito Kid’s suit.

About Edogawa - the new guy of the police force learn about this strange kid from his coworkers.

The Mystery of Conan Edogawa - Ran is at her limit, all these suppressions about the little kid living with her actually being her childhood friend is eating her up. So…. She does what Shinichi always encourages her to do and investigate. I love all the ways ran tries to solve the case.

New Suspicion - a short sweet fic about Ran getting suspicious again

Deduction by Fusae - Sonoko tries to figure out Ai-Chan

Code Red - Mori discovers a bunch of red dots on his neck and tries to figure out their origin

Shift from the norm - Conan is trying to figure out his new dynamic with Ran after she finds out

Where He Was - ran learns where shicichi is after being poisoned

All Night Gang - Ran and Kazuha find out Conan’s secret after he left his phone unattended, they use the opportunity to gossip, this series takes a break from all the crime and mystery and just talk about stuff. A lot of good character development and comics in this series.

Curiosity Made the Cat - instead of being turned into a kid, Shinchi turns into a cat and begins his vigilante arc! It’s more humorous than serious. But does have a few dark moments.

Written in blood - incomplete rn, but this takes a more logical look at how stuff works…… “The apotoxin didn't work cleanly. That night the police found enough pieces of Kudo Shinichi to declare him dead.” We see how everyone deals with the tragedy and Shinichi being more traumatized by the event.

Magic In Spades - Kaito meets the detective boys.

Necromancy for Beginners - part of the Halloweenverse AU, part of a series. Kazuha couldn’t accept Heiji’s death so she tries to bring him back.

Scientific Enthusiasm - the detective boys ask some…. Concerning things in class.

Playing the Fool - Mori is sharper then he seems

Going Down - a new mystery has arrived, unfortunately Conan cannot solve it, because he is one of the victims in this case.

Edit: The Candy Con - Conan scams people for snacks for Heiji

If you have any good fanfics to add please share them with me!

#dcmk #detective conan #magic kaito #fanfic rec #case closed

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becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys · 5 months ago

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Hello!! I am back with more questions from my Duolingo Welsh lessons. I am so sorry I’m annoying, but I am having a grand time but would like to get it right.

1. It doesn’t have a speech section so I’m having a hard time with my pronunciations - I’d love to learn the alphabet and know how to pronounce each of the letters. Might you have any recommendations for me?

2. I’m learning about past tense and it is very confusing. I can’t tell gwaeth from wnaeth (for example) which is worse now that I’m getting gwnes i fwyta. Have I completely misunderstood this? I thought gwaeth was the past tense of gwneud but I think maybe I’m wrong about that. Are they just past tense of Mae? But then what’s the difference between aeth and and gwnaeth and wnaeth? 😭 Am I even coherent asking this question?

3. Speaking of mutations. Any chance you can do a brief primer on that? I definitely understand it after the vowel but I’m pretty sure that’s not the only time? Because of nos, I think feminine mutations might be a thing? Also feminine mutations is going to be the name of my band.

4. Would you be willing to explain Mi? Sometimes there’s a mi and sometimes there’s not and I can’t tell why/when it should be there.

5. Also is there a difference between do/ydw and naddo/ nac ydw? Just curious.

6. Also also what’s the difference between eglwys and capel? I don’t really know if a church and a chapel are different things?

Thank you again for your patience!

Not annoying at all! Alright, let's see *cracks knuckles*

1 . Pronunciation.

Yes, this playlist on YouTube. Done by a woman from the north and a man from the south, so you can hear the differences between the northern and southern U, for example

(Southern is easier by far for a beginner. But northern sounds cooler, even though it does require you to unhinge your jaw to get it.)

2 . Gwneud.

I presume you mean "gwnaeth", rather than "gwaeth"? Gwaeth means 'worse' lol.

You're correct, though - gwnaeth is the third person singular past tense of gwneud, meaning to do or to make. 'Wnaeth' is mutated, and indicates that it's a question or a negative. Aeth, by contrast, is different - that's actually the past tense of "mynd", to go.

These, like in English, are irregular verbs, which is why they're tricksy. A verb table with regular verbs would be nice and straightforward and you just add an ending to indicate which person you're using; here's an example using "cerdded", the most beautiful and regular of Welsh verbs:

Cerddais i (I walked)

Cerddaist ti (you walked)

Cerddodd e/hi (he/she walked)

Cerddon ni (we walked)

Cerddoch chi (y'all walked)

Cerddon nhw (they walked)

Nice and easy! Ais/aist/odd/on/och/on. Plug in verbs as needed.

But, these lil fuckers are irregular. So "gwneud" goes:

Gwnes i

Gwnest ti

Gwnaeth e/hi

Gwnaethon ni

Gwnaethoch chi

Gwnaethon nhw

However, the irregulars do, at least, share these endings. "Mynd" becomes es i/est ti/aeth e etc. "Cael" has a slight twist - singular follows this pattern (ces i etc), but plural goes cawson ni/cawsoch chi/cawson nhw for no reason anyone can fathom. Even so, though, the endings are following the established pattern.

But, one extra note for "gwneud" - sometimes, rather than follow the cerdded example up above, you use gwneud to construct your past tense. So these two sentences both mean "I walked":

Cerddais i

Gwnes i gerdded

Literally, you're saying "I did walking", but it's grammatically acceptable. This means as a learner if you can hammer the six forms of gwneud's past tense into your verbal speech, you can construct that past tense with any verb you like. So, there's that.

(It also means some dialects of Wenglish use "I do" in an amazingly similar way to the AAVE habitual be. "I do go to town with Mam on Saturdays": a totally normal thing to hear in Abertillery.)

3 . Mutations.

I mean. GREAT band name.

Short answer: there are three types of mutations in Welsh, two of which (nasal and aspirate) are quick and easy to explain and one of which (soft) is a bit more lengthy and crops up all the time. They are used for two reasons: one (1), to make certain grammar clearer, and two (2), to make Welsh poetic forms possible (yes really).Do not stress about getting them right. Plenty of fluent first language speakers don't get them right all the time. You will still be understood. It is more important that you speak Welsh than stress about making sure you're perfect.

Longer answer:

Aspirate mutation. Very simply, a c -> ch, t -> th, and p -> ph. This is the only reason ph is a letter in Welsh, actually - to make the mutation more visible. Otherwise, it's pronounced the same as a ff, and so is redundant.

Used mostly after the feminine pronoun ei (her). Her cat: ei chath. Her shield: ei tharian. Her head: ei phen.

Nasal mutation. Affects a few more letters: b -> m, c -> ngh, d -> nh, g -> ng, p -> mh, t -> nh. The number of Hs there looks intimidating, I know, but they're almost always followed by a vowel, so pronunciation is actually quite easy and pleasant.

Most commonly used with the possessive first person singular pronoun fy (my), and after the preposition yn (in), both of which may change at the end to make it even easier. So Cardiff = Caerdydd, but "in Cardiff" = yng Nghaerdydd. Father = tad, but "my father" = fy nhad. Phonetically, those would be roughly pronounced "ung Hire deeth", and "vern haad", to give an idea.

Soft mutation. AKA the Bastard. A good quarter of the damn alphabet gets caught in this:

There are, IIRC, 28 different times you would use these. I shall not be listing them all.

But, the most common are:

After the masculine pronoun ei (his). His cat: ei gath. His shield: ei darian. His head: ei ben. (This is the only way, other than context, to tell whether "ei" means his or her - male gets soft mutation, female gets aspirate)

After prepositions. Am, ar, at, gan, heb, i, o, dan, dros, trwy, wrth, and hyd.

Feminine words after the definite article. Chair: cadair. The chair: y gadair.

Adjectives or adverbs following "yn". Exciting: cyffrous. The trees are exciting: mae'r coed yn gyffrous.

Adjectives following a singular feminine noun (not a plural). Beautiful: prydferth. Beautiful tree: Coeden brydferth. Beautiful trees: Coed prydferth.

Many other such occurances

4 . Explain Mi

God scientists WISH they could explain Mi.

So, this is where there's an odd little starter word, right? They come in north/south flavours (mi/fe). "I walked to town":

Cerddais i'r dref.

Mi gerddais i'r dref.

Fe gerddais i'r dref.

These mean the same thing, are entirely optional, and if you choose to use them they trigger a soft mutation. Why do this? Unknown. Helps with writing poetry to have the option.

5 . Yes and No

Yes, there's a difference - it's tense.

Welsh, like all Celtic languages, technically doesn't have single words for yes and no (although that's no longer true in informal Welsh, where ie and na are now extensively used. Particularly by learners.) Instead, each "yes" is actually repetition of the original verb, and therefore means "Yes it is", or "Yes I am", or "Yes there are" or any other permutation.

Wyt ti'n cerdded i'r dref heddiw? Are you walking to town today?

Ydw. Yes (I am).

Do and naddo are past tense. Yes I did/no I didn't, essentially, though they cover more than just first person.

6. Church vs chapel

They are different, but I am non-religious and don't really know the difference. I think it's different denominations, though. Certainly in Wales, religious Welsh-speakers are chapel-goers, and the choices are Methodist, Baptist and Welsh Non-Conformist, whereas English speakers are more likely to go to church and be, like, CoE or protestant or what have you. But yeah, this is more a religious question, so I shall have to bow out.

ANYWAY! I hope this has helped, hmu if you need clarifications or what have you

#asks #wales!#closed for cleaning on mondays #linguistics #long post

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lingyunxi · 11 months ago

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Self-use Sims 3 CC Tutorials List

Here is a list of tutorials from which I learn to convert/create sims 3 cc in a few months (and as a poor English speaker). I think it might help someone who also wants to try making things for sims 3 but doesn't know where to start, though it's been 15 years from the game release and even Inzoi is coming hahah.

The list covers objects, clothes, hairs and eyes. I know there're lots of tutorials not listed here, that's because I haven't tried them in my projects by hand. But The list will be updated with new things I learn. Most tutorials are in English. Thanks to all these creators for sharing their precious knowledge!

Sorry for the miserable format, cuz I wrote them in Patreon and paste here. You can also read it there, free of course.

Where I find tutorials

sims 3 tutorial hub

ts3 creators cave and its discord

Mod the sims tutorial wiki and the forum

pis3update tutorials tag

General

CC basic concepts by nightosphere (for clothes, most knowledge is shared with objects)

Tools

TSRW guide by apple (for objects, most knowledge is shared with clothes)

Blender

shortcut by Blender Guru

beginner tutorial for version 2.5, 2.8, 3.0, 4.0

3.5入门教程 (youtube / bilibili)

设置切换语言快捷键 change language shortcut settings

图片取色器网站

Mesh ToolKit with Seam Fixer for all ages

Topaz gigapixel AI guide / higher quality texture

Texture

Nicer bake / bake in blender 2.78

Bake in blender 2.93

Make normal map

small size blank texture

Reasons for black blocks on baked image

Adjust texture color without losing quality

Object

clone obejcts with S3OC

4t3

Functional Objects

Functional bed

TSRW setting

Combining Textures for Objects with Multiple Textures

Add normal map to objects

Introduction to slot categories

Add slots in TSRW

Edit in-door shadow or occluders in TSRW / Talks about 3 kinds of in-game shadow by Pocci

Clothes

4t3 by nightosphere

Reduce polycount / fix seams, holes, shadows or normals

Bone reference rule

Avoid milkshape workflow / adjust bone assignment and morphs in blender

Manually fix bone in blender

Convert between ages/body meshes

TSRW check list

Fix long clothes clip with body

Fix holes on morphs (easier in blender)

Extrude collars

Create texture in PS

Avoid TSRW workflow / CTU tutorial

Hairs

Avoid milkshape and TSRW workflow / delete backfaces / handmade morphs / DABOOBS guide

Keys pointing to in-game blank textures to save file size (for DABOOBS not TSRW)

Reduce polycount

4t3

Fix weird seam lines on hairs from s4s

Fix pigtail issue

Eyes

Convert contacts to default eyes

#sims 3 #the sims 3 #tutorial #sims 3 tutorial

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what-even-is-thiss · 2 months ago

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Free or Cheap Spanish Learning Resources So You Can Run at Windmills in Fluent Spanish

I will update this list as I learn of any more useful ones. If you want general language learning resources check out this other post. This list is Spanish specific. Find lists for other specific languages here.

WEBSITES

Dreaming Spanish - A website that is also a YouTube Channel. This is a comprehensible input site with videos about a variety of subjects with multiple hosts from multiple countries. It has content for learners from absolute beginner to lower advanced. It lets you sort videos by dialect, subject, length, etc. The free version has a lot of content. The paid version is $9 a month and has many more videos and allows you to track your listening hours. The website is in English but all videos are entirely in Spanish.

Lawless Spanish - A free website with resources to learn Spanish relating to grammar, pronunciation, and vocabulary. The website also has worksheets, charts, an AI chatbot, and reviews of different learning resources. The website is in English.

Spanish Boom - A free website with beginner lessons and free readings with audio and visual aids. They're also associated with a service called Esidioma that provides paid courses with tutor help for around $23 and also sells books. Prices are in Euros but they also sell to people outside of Europe. The website is available in multiple languages.

studyspanish.com - A website with free verb drills and grammar lessons. It's commonly used by high school Spanish students. They also have a blog that hasn't updated in a while but there is an archive to read through. They have a paid tier with access to their podcasts, vocab lessons, and their Spanish learning app which is $10 a month or $120 for a lifetime membership. The website is in English.

Speaking Latino - A website marketed at Spanish teachers but it's in English and has guides to colloquial Spanish and slang in a lot of different countries and a free blog with tips on sounding like a local in different countries. It has a paid tier but that's mostly useful for Spanish teachers. They also sell slang dictionaries for various countries that are usually less than $10.

UT Austin Spanish Proficiency Exercises - A bunch of free grammar, vocab, and pronunciation guides for various tasks you should be able to do in Spanish at various levels from one of my alma maters, the University of Texas at Austin. It's got videos of people from different countries pronouncing things. The podcast links often don't work for some reason but the grammar, vocab, and video links should work fine. The website is in English.

SpanishDict - A free dictionary website and app with a search feature that also has curated vocabulary lists on various topics and articles. They have a paid tier at $13 a month with a writing coach and subscriber only curated lists and articles. Personally I don't think their paid tier is all that special but it's up to you. The website is in English.

BBC Bitesize Spanish - Bitesize is a free study resource for kids and is sorted by level. It has articles aimed at little kids as well as secondary school aged teens studying for their exams or planning to study abroad. The website is in English and available worldwide, not just in the UK.

YOUTUBE CHANNELS

Hola Spanish - A channel by a woman named Brenda from Argentina who makes videos about grammar, pronunciation, culture, media, and general Spanish tips for upper beginner to advanced learners. The channel is almost entirely in Spanish with occasional vocabulary words translated into English onscreen. There are subtitles in Spanish onscreen but sometimes they randomly disappear.

Butterfly Spanish - A channel with free lessons from beginner to lower intermediate. The host also makes videos about useful phrases and listening practice videos. The channel is mostly in English.

Spanish After Hours - A comprehensible input channel for beginner to intermediate learners with vlogs, history, Spanish tips, and news. The descriptions and video titles are in English but the videos are all in Spanish. The channel host is from Spain.

Easy Spanish - A channel part of the easy languages network that makes a combination of videos with useful phrases and terms for beginners and interviews on the street with locals. They have teams in both Barcelona and Mexico City and there are dual language subtitles in Spanish and English onscreen. The hosts also have a podcast for intermediate to advanced learners.

My Daily Spanish - A catchall channel that has lessons, discussions of grammar, culture topics, vlogs, vocabulary, and other various things. The host is from Spain and also makes a lot of YouTube shorts. She mostly speaks in Spanish but occasionally uses English or has English translations onscreen.

Spansh Boost with Martin and Spanish Boost with Mila - These channels are run by a couple from Argentina who also work as tutors on italki. They often appear on each other's channels and both have their own podcasts and vlogs and general content videos that they make discussing their lives, giving tips, and discussing culture. Mila also makes a lot of videos playing the sims.

Spanish Boost Gaming - Run by Martin from Spanish Boost, this is a lets play channel in clear and easy to understand Spanish. Subtitles are available in English and Spanish and a few other languages as well and it's an actual let's play channel. He plays a variety of video games, makes jokes, and says cuss words and everything.

Mextalki - A channel run by a couple of guys from Mexico city that has listening practice, podcasts, street interviews, and Mexican Spanish specific lessons. Some videos have dual language subtitles onscreen while others do not. The channel is majority in Spanish but in a few lesson videos or portions of videos they will speak in English a bit.

Espanol Con Juan - A channel that teaches Spanish in Spanish from upper beginner to upper intermediate. Juan has grammar lessons, vocabulary lessons, and videos about culture. He is from Spain and the channel is entirely in Spanish. He also has a podcast for more advanced learners.

READING PRACTICE

Vikidia - A wikipedia type website specifically made for kids. The articles are short and written in more simple easy to understand Spanish. The website is in Spanish and made for native speaker kids.

Spanish graded readers by Olly Richards - Spanish has short stories and dialogues for beginner and intermediate, books in easy Spanish on world war 1, world war 2, western philosophy, and climate change. There's also dialogue books specific to Mexican Spanish and Spanish used on social media. The books usually go from $5-$20 new depending on how old they are and whether or not you bought a digital copy. These are really easy to find at used bookstores for cheap though, especially in the US.

Conatilteg Digital - This is a mobile app that provides digital versions of the free textbooks for children provided by the Mexican Ministry of Education both historic and current. The link I provided is for iOS but the app is also available on android and the app is available in multiple countries and not just Mexico. The app is entirely in Spanish and categorized by grade from preschool to secondary school so it's a resource appropriate for all levels and may be enjoyable for any kids you know that are learning Spanish. You can also view their browser website here. (also entirely in Spanish)

Hola Que Pasa - A free website with news articles for learners from beginner to intermediate difficulty. They also provide audio and have the news articles available in podcast form. Every article has certain phrases highlighted that you can hover over and get and English translation of. The website is in a mix of English and Spanish.

Spanish in Levels - A world news website in Spanish for learners. The articles are separated into three different levels and the website is in a mix of English and Spanish. Each article also has audio.

PODCASTS

Spanish for False Beginners - An unscripted podcast about various topics hosted by a guy from the UK and a guy from Spain. The podcast is aimed at people who find beginner content to be boring but still find intermediate content to be too difficult. English is very rarely used.

Uforia/Univision - Uforia is a free app aimed at native speakers in the US and has Spanish language radio, music, and podcasts. Univision in general is also useful if you like American and international news and programming in Spanish.

Radio National de Espana - Another site for native speakers, this is Spanish National Radio. They have a variety of free podcasts and radio programs.

Spanish Obsessed - This is a series of lessons in podcast form for learners from absolute beginner to advanced.

Storylearning Spanish Podcast - This podcast tells different short stories in Spanish and is aimed at upper beginner to lower intermediate learners.

Radio Ambulante - A Spanish language podcast from NPR that's similar to something like This American Life that tells stories from around Latin America. Although it's aimed at native speakers, the language used is clear and understandable and transcripts are available. They're also aware that a lot of intermediate and advanced learners use them for listening practice and they have developed a free app that helps with comprehension and vocabulary when listening to their podcast.

SELF STUDY TEXTBOOKS

Madrigal's Magic Key to Spanish - A self study textbook written in the late 80s that still mostly holds up for beginner to upper beginner Spanish. A paperback edition of the textbook is about $25 and used copies and ebooks are also usually available wherever you like to buy books. It's also half off on Amazon pretty often.

Complete Spanish step-by-step by Mcgraw Hill - This is a complete version of the McGraw Hill budget option, the spanish step by step series that focuses on the most frequently used words and grammar. It's $25 new but the individual books in the series usually cost less than $10 and used versions and ebooks are available.

Complete Spanish Grammar from Mcgraw Hill - This is a workbook as well as a textbook that usually costs around $20. The complete Spanish all in one version of the book costs about $40. Used versions of these books can be difficult to find because people tend to write all over them but ebook versions are available. You can also find their beginner workbook for around $18.

Practical Spanish Grammar - This book is usually around $25 but because it's not a workbook it's fairly easy to find used copies. An advanced grammar textbook is also available.

SERIES FOR LEARNERS AND KIDS SHOWS

Destinos - This is a series of over 50 episodes of a telenovela made for Spanish learners. The plot revolves around a group of siblings searching around the world for their long lost half sibling they just learned that they had so the series includes a lot of different Spanish dialects.

Extra Spanish - A 13 episode sitcom made to show in Spanish classrooms that revolves around a group of friends in Spain and a student that just moved there.

Dora la Expladora - Yeah if you remember Dora the Explorer from your preschool days it also unsurprisingly exists in Spanish. You can watch clips and some full episodes on YouTube and buy full seasons for around $8 each on Amazon.

PBS Kids in Spanish - A few PBS Kids shows like Cyberchase and Daniel Tiger have been dubbed into Spanish. The link I've given goes to a place to buy them on Amazon Prime but if you go digging on their YouTube channel or the PBS Kids website you also might be able to find them for free. They don't always make it easy to find though.

Plaza Sésamo - The Spanish language localization of Sesame Street for Mexican audiences with its own unique characters. The YouTube channel has a huge amount of content on it and often has episodes streaming live.

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