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gallusrostromegalus · 4 months ago

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Random question, could you give some ideas on Irish names your family may have in the 1950-60s? I got a character with an Irish grandpa with 9 brothers and sisters (3 brothers and 6 sisters) and I only got the oldest sister name (soairse) and his name (Caine). I guess I could just name the rest some form of jack and Margret since those seem to be popular, but I wanted to see if there were some “interesting” names you found in your family tree that maybe one of the siblings got named after some ancestor?

Firstly for the sake of clarity: I'm American, not Irish. All of my ancestors for the last 4-5 generations have lived here, and while I like learning about the language/music/culture, I am absolutely not an expert. I HIGHLY recommend getting a sensitivity reader, I'm sure someone in the comments can wave at you if they're willing to take on the job.

Second, Triple-check the spelling, pronunciation, meaning and provenance of any names you do choose, and ABSOLUTELY DO NOT TRUST ANY BABY NAME WEBSITES, they're basically all AI slop at best. The best written-down lists and meanings are actually on Wikipedia.

Third: If you want to learn more Irish names, you can look up the names of like, any Irish musician or artist. I think spotify still has Genre Playlists, if you look up "Irish Folk" you'll get a shitload of names of Real Irish people- and hey, if Hirohiko Akari can name all his characters after 80's pop bands, you can make a subtle ref to modern musicians. Also you'll get a bunch of fun music! --- So while I was writing this, I somewhat departed from the intent of this response, and am putting the last point under a cut because the post got long. And weird.

So there is a thing in Irish-american families, and I think it's true in the British isles still where there are "Family Names", where the same set of first names is recycled over and over and over across generations. My dad's family has exactly three male names that they rotate through over the generations: Roy, Emmet and Jack*. In that order, where the son takes the father's first name as his middle name. My great-grandfather was Roy Jack Surname, my grandfather was Emmet Roy Surname, and my dad is Jack Emmet. My sister and I were AFAB, so the names skipped us and my male cousin in my generation is now Roy Jack. In the event that there are more than three living men with the same surname in the family, that's when they start reaching for the Given Names Of In-Laws We Like and might introduce a new name into the lineup.

*Names changed for privacy above and hereafter, but you get the idea.

So if any of your characters are descendants of that grandpa? They may share a first or middle name with one of his siblings. in fact, they may share the SAME first and middle name with a living relative, and be called "Junior" or "Young Firstname" to distinguish them from the relative they were named after.

My mom's family is from England and has a similar tradition: any new girl born into that family gets a name that is based on the name of one of her living female relatives, usually by sharing the same first letter or syllable. Elanor after Eloise, Vivian after Virginia, and also Jenny after Virgnia via 'Ginny' and every variation of Margret ever, which there are way more of than you'd think.

I cannot recommend doing what they did with Male names though: Name literally every boy Bob* for like five generations, and distinguish individuals by middle name (Bob-Howard and Bob-Benjamin) surname (Bob-Jones and Bob-Bailey) or Honorific (Captain Bob, Dr. Bob, Bob Jr.) when yelling out the kitchen window.

Most families have to good sense to not have the same name repeated in a generation, even if it has a shitload of nicknames. A mother and daughter might both be Margrets (with different nicknames), but two sisters or cousins wouldn't be.

If you've got in-laws you like, but their surname didn't carry over to their kids, you can also just use their surname as a first name! "Regan" is a first and last name, as are Riley and Bailey. This works out in some cases but not in others:

I have a pretty rare surname- last time I checked, there's only 14 people with it worldwide. It's similar to two other VERY COMMON Irish Surnames, but spelled different and from a different region. It's also Very Definitely A Surname- nobody would see my surname alone and think its a firstname.

Since I don't want to bandy it about, we'll pretend that it's "Breathnach", which has a similar vibe.

My Iowa family is Enormous and all descended from my Great-Aunt Lilyanne, Emmet-Roy's sister. Being a good catholic girl, Lillyanne took her husband's surname when she married, and most of her descendants still have that surname, and none have Breathnach.

After the last of my grandfathers grandchildren were born my Iowa family was sad- all but one of Emmet-Roy's grandchildren was female, and my male cousin has his father's surname. Assuming that we would all marry and take our spouses names, the Iowa family despaired that that the Breathnach name would die out!

So one of my second cousins decided that she would Carry On The Family Name, by giving it to the son she was carrying as a Firstname.

Yeah.

Being "Breathnach Surname" is bad enough, but this was compounded by the fact that the Iowa family's surname is Thomas.

YEAH.

My poor cousin Beathnach Thomas, who always has to re-do his paperwork because NOBODY ever puts the names in the correct boxes, who had his first name printed on every jersey he ever had because the uniform place went "that can't be right!", who cant buy his own beer because he's had so many drivers licenses confiscated because liquor store owners and bartenders think his ID is a fake, who has to not only spell his name to everyone he meets, but explain it too.

Then I made it worse.

I ran into cousin Beathnach in Bozeman, Montana quite by accident a few years ago, and while catching up, I mentioned that I was married.

"You know, it's a real hassle, but I'm kind of glad I've got the name I do. I'd heard you sister changed her name, and now with you married- I'd be sad to think we were running out of Breathnachs, you know?" he laughed.

I had to explain.

I married the most wonderful man in the world, who has an extremely common first and last name. Which was kind of a problem, because he shares it with some truly rotten people that always come up during background checks and he has have to explain he's not THAT asshole. It also sounds like and is only a letter or two off a lot of other very common names so his mail is constantly sent awry.

My husband will shortly abandon his too-common-for-comfort surname and become the newest Breathnach, taking the total to 15 (the paperwork takes a while).

...So the name lives on through us anyway, and poor cousin Breathnach Thomas went through all that for no reason. He got very quiet, got up from the table and walked outside to the veranda of the restaurant we were in to stare into the picturesque scenery for a while.

"Well, it's not like people change their first names..." he sighed, when he returned to the table.

"...You know how my sister changed her name? She only changed her first name. She's still a Breathnach." I explained quietly.

I've never seen a man look so haunted.

"I know lots of people who've changed their first names, actually. Mostly for transgender reasons, but a bunch because they just didn't like the one they were given." I added, because if he's going to get his world turned over, it's best to flip it all at once.

His brow furrowed at the ponderous speed of a continental collision, approaching the idea with caution. "...I'll have to think about it."

It's been about a year, but since then, I'll get a text from him every few weeks, auditioning a new given name. I do my best to be fair- I give him the meanings of those names, how they're likely to be misconstrued (some are tolerable annoyances, some pose a safety risk), and if he'd be sharing that name with anybody notable or troublesome. The first few were clearly based on Breathnach, but he began to branch out, and the trend of names has indicated that the idea of Naming Himself is causing my cousin to examine himself, and come to some Realizations (TM).

I realize I have gotten completely off-topic from your actual ask, but I urge you to really get into the nuance of nomencalture, because a name can tell a fascinating story.

#family lore #poor cousin Lastname Firstname

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imsobadatnicknames2 · 1 year ago

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How can you consider yourself any sort of leftist when you defend AI art bullshit? You literally simp for AI techbros and have the gall to pretend you're against big corporations?? Get fucked

I don't "defend" AI art. I think a particular old post of mine that a lot of people tend to read in bad faith must be making the rounds again lmao.

Took me a good while to reply to this because you know what? I decided to make something positive out of this and use this as an opportunity to outline what I ACTUALLY believe about AI art. If anyone seeing this decides to read it in good or bad faith... Welp, your choice I guess.

I have several criticisms of the way the proliferation of AI art generators and LLMs is making a lot of things worse. Some of these are things I have voiced in the past, some of these are things I haven't until now:

Most image and text AI generators are fine-tuned to produce nothing but the most agreeable, generically pretty content slop, pretty much immediately squandering their potential to be used as genuinely interesting artistic tools with anything to offer in terms of a unique aesthetic experience (AI video still manages to look bizarre and interesting but it's getting there too)

In the entertainment industry and a lot of other fields, AI image generation is getting incorporated into production pipelines in ways that lead to the immiseration of working artists, being used to justify either lower wages or straight-up layoffs, and this is something that needs to be fought against. That's why I unconditionally supported the SAG-AFTRA strikes last year and will unconditionally support any collective action to address AI art as a concrete labor issue

In most fields where it's being integrated, AI art is vastly inferior to human artists in any use case where you need anything other than to make a superficially pretty picture really fast. If you need to do anything like ask for revisions or minor corrections, give very specific descriptions of how objects and people are interacting with each other, or just like. generate several pictures of the same thing and have them stay consistent with each other, you NEED human artists and it's preposterous to think they can be replaced by AI.

There is a lot of art on the internet that consists of the most generically pretty, cookie-cutter anime waifu-adjacent slop that has zero artistic or emotional value to either the people seeing it or the person churning it out, and while this certainly was A Thing before the advent of AI art generators, generative AI has made it extremely easy to become the kind of person who churns it out and floods online art spaces with it.

Similarly, LLMs make it extremely easy to generate massive volumes of texts, pages, articles, listicles and what have you that are generic vapid SEO-friendly pap at best and bizzarre nonsense misinformation at worst, drowning useful information in a sea of vapid noise and rendering internet searches increasingly useless.

The way LLMs are being incorporated into customer service and similar services not only, again, encourages further immiseration of customer service workers, but it's also completely useless for most customers.

A very annoyingly vocal part the population of AI art enthusiasts, fanatics and promoters do tend to talk about it in a way that directly or indirectly demeans the merit and skill of human artists and implies that they think of anyone who sees anything worthwile in the process of creation itself rather than the end product as stupid or deluded.

So you can probably tell by now that I don't hold AI art or writing in very high regard. However (and here's the part that'll get me called an AI techbro, or get people telling me that I'm just jealous of REAL artists because I lack the drive to create art of my own, or whatever else) I do have some criticisms of the way people have been responding to it, and have voiced such criticisms in the past.

I think a lot of the opposition to AI art has critstallized around unexamined gut reactions, whipping up a moral panic, and pressure to outwardly display an acceptable level of disdain for it. And in particular I think this climate has made a lot of people very prone to either uncritically entertain and adopt regressive ideas about Intellectual Propety, OR reveal previously held regressive ideas about Intellectual Property that are now suddenly more socially acceptable to express:

(I wanna preface this section by stating that I'm a staunch intellectual property abolitionist for the same reason I'm a private property abolitionist. If you think the existence of intellectual property is a good thing, a lot of my ideas about a lot of stuff are gonna be unpalatable to you. Not much I can do about it.)

A lot of people are suddenly throwing their support behind any proposal that promises stricter copyright regulations to combat AI art, when a lot of these also have the potential to severely udnermine fair use laws and fuck over a lot of independent artist for the benefit of big companies.

It was very worrying to see a lot of fanfic authors in particular clap for the George R R Martin OpenAI lawsuit because well... a lot of them don't realize that fanfic is a hobby that's in a position that's VERY legally precarious at best, that legally speaking using someone else's characters in your fanfic is as much of a violation of copyright law as straight up stealing entire passages, and that any regulation that can be used against the latter can be extended against the former.

Similarly, a lot of artists were cheering for the lawsuit against AI art models trained to mimic the style of specific artists. Which I agree is an extremely scummy thing to do (just like a human artist making a living from ripping off someone else's work is also extremely scummy), but I don't think every scummy act necessarily needs to be punishable by law, and some of them would in fact leave people worse off if they were. All this to say: If you are an artist, and ESPECIALLY a fan artist, trust me. You DON'T wanna live in a world where there's precedent for people's artstyles to be considered intellectual property in any legally enforceable way. I know you wanna hurt AI art people but this is one avenue that's not worth it.

Especially worrying to me as an indie musician has been to see people mention the strict copyright laws of the music industry as a positive thing that they wanna emulate. "this would never happen in the music industry because they value their artists copyright" idk maybe this is a the grass is greener type of situation but I'm telling you, you DON'T wanna live in a world where copyright law in the visual arts world works the way it does in the music industry. It's not worth it.

I've seen at least one person compare AI art model training to music sampling and say "there's a reason why they cracked down on sampling" as if the death of sampling due to stricter copyright laws was a good thing and not literally one of the worst things to happen in the history of music which nearly destroyed several primarily black music genres. Of course this is anecdotal because it's just One Guy I Saw Once, but you can see what I mean about how uncritical support for copyright law as a tool against AI can lead people to adopt increasingly regressive ideas about copyright.

Similarly, I've seen at least one person go "you know what? Collages should be considered art theft too, fuck you" over an argument where someone else compared AI art to collages. Again, same point as above.

Similarly, I take issue with the way a lot of people seem EXTREMELY personally invested in proving AI art is Not Real Art. I not only find this discussion unproductive, but also similarly dangerously prone to validating very reactionary ideas about The Nature Of Art that shouldn't really be entertained. Also it's a discussion rife with intellectual dishonesty and unevenly applied definition and standards.

When a lot of people present the argument of AI art not being art because the definition of art is this and that, they try to pretend that this is the definition of art the've always operated under and believed in, even when a lot of the time it's blatantly obvious that they're constructing their definition on the spot and deliberately trying to do so in such a way that it doesn't include AI art.

They never succeed at it, btw. I've seen several dozen different "AI art isn't art because art is [definition]". I've seen exactly zero of those where trying to seriously apply that definition in any context outside of trying to prove AI art isn't art doesn't end up in it accidentally excluding one or more non-AI artforms, usually reflecting the author's blindspots with regard to the different forms of artistic expression.

(However, this is moot because, again, these are rarely definitions that these people actually believe in or adhere to outside of trying to win "Is AI art real art?" discussions.)

Especially worrying when the definition they construct is built around stuff like Effort or Skill or Dedication or The Divine Human Spirit. You would not be happy about the kinds of art that have traditionally been excluded from Real Art using similar definitions.

Seriously when everyone was celebrating that the Catholic Church came out to say AI art isn't real art and sharing it as if it was validating and not Extremely Worrying that the arguments they'd been using against AI art sounded nearly identical to things TradCaths believe I was like. Well alright :T You can make all the "I never thought I'd die fighting side by side with a catholic" legolas and gimli memes you want, but it won't change the fact that the argument being made by the catholic church was a profoundly conservative one and nearly identical to arguments used to dismiss the artistic merit of certain forms of "degenerate" art and everyone was just uncritically sharing it, completely unconcerned with what kind of worldview they were lending validity to by sharing it.

Remember when the discourse about the Gay Sex cats pic was going on? One of the things I remember the most from that time was when someone went "Tell me a definition of art that excludes this picture without also excluding Fountain by Duchamp" and how just. Literally no one was able to do it. A LOT of people tried to argue some variation of "Well, Fountain is art and this image isn't because what turns fountain into art is Intent. Duchamp's choice to show a urinal at an art gallery as if it was art confers it an element of artistic intent that this image lacks" when like. Didn't by that same logic OP's choice to post the image on tumblr as if it was art also confer it artistic intent in the same way? Didn't that argument actually kinda end up accidentally validating the artistic status of every piece of AI art ever posted on social media? That moment it clicked for me that a lot of these definitions require applying certain concepts extremely selectively in order to make sense for the people using them.

A lot of people also try to argue it isn't Real Art based on the fact that most AI art is vapid but like. If being vapid definitionally excludes something from being art you're going to have to exclude a whooole lot of stuff along with it. AI art is vapid. A lot of art is too, I don't think this argument works either.

Like, look, I'm not really invested in trying to argue in favor of The Artistic Merits of AI art but I also find it extremely hard to ignore how trying to categorically define AI art as Not Real Art not only is unproductive but also requires either a) applying certain parts of your definition of art extremely selectively, b) constructing a definition of art so convoluted and full of weird caveats as to be functionally useless, or c) validating extremely reactionary conservative ideas about what Real Art is.

Some stray thoughts that don't fit any of the above sections.

I've occassionally seen people respond to AI art being used for shitposts like "A lot of people have affordable commissions, you could have paid someone like $30 to draw this for you instead of using the plagiarism algorithm and exploiting the work of real artists" and sorry but if you consider paying an artist a rate that amounts to like $5 for several hours of work a LESS exploitative alternative I think you've got something fucked up going on with your priorities.

Also it's kinda funny when people comment on the aforementioned shitposts with some variation of "see, the usage of AI art robs it of all humor because the thing that makes shitposts funny is when you consider the fact that someone would spend so much time and effort in something so stupid" because like. Yeah that is part of the humor SOMETIMES but also people share and laugh at low effort shitposts all the time. Again you're constructing a definition that you don't actually believe in anywhere outside of this type of conversations. Just say you don't like that it's AI art because you think it's morally wrong and stop being disingenuous.

So yeah, this is pretty much everything I believe about the topic.

I don't "defend" AI art, but my opposition to it is firmly rooted in my principles, and that means I refuse to uncritically accept any anti-AI art argument that goes against those same principles.

If you think not accepting and parroting every Anti-AI art argument I encounter because some of them are ideologically rooted in things I disagree with makes me indistinguishable from "AI techbros" you're working under a fucked up dichotomy.

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kabr0ztrousers · 4 months ago

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Can you do a part 2 to the Concerning Portal?

I love your work ♥️

Kabr0z Writes episode 72: Concerning Portals part 2

Also entitled: Job Interview

Find the rest of the Kabr0z Writes anthology here!

Find episode 8: Concerning Portals here!

CWs: Dubcon; interspecies; public sex; portals; creampie; tentacles; oral sex; Noncon;

A/N: The biggest question is why, after being railed and free-used by an indeterminate number of massive flared cocks, why would she put on the panties again?

I was gonna have the reader be in a job interview and gradually losing control, but that's a heap of dialogue that doesn't super work in second person

#########################################

A good pair of knickers is hard to find. So when you get a pair that really, properly fits, you aren't going to ge trid of them because you were wearing them that time a mysterious portal decided to open itself in your pants. Besides, your job interview is this afternoon, and you need your lucky undies on your side today of all days.

You took the train. Hopefully you're able to land the job, then you'll be making enough to actually get a driving license. As it was, you spent far too much on a train ticket into the city and still didn't manage to get a seat, holding on to one of the bars rising from floor to ceiling to brace against the movement of the carriage. Your phone buzzed, an email came through from the hiring manager. You hadn't heard of the company, Creadle and Crabnuts Innovations, but when they reached out to you offering twice your salary for the same job, you'd be a fool to not hear them out at least. The email was just a confirmation of the appointment, with a link to an interview package to leaf through. Not what you'd call standard, but you had half an hour to kill before your station. At least the train was non-stop, so it's not getting any busier.

Your thumb brushed the touchscreen, following the link. You were expecting some cheesy corporate webpage or maybe some generic grounding exercises. Instead, the link just contained a picture of your front door, a hand pushing a familiar package through the letterbox, and the words "Welcome to your interview"

The gusset of your knickers heated up. You flashed back to the bus, craning your neck to see where the bathroom was on your carriage. The indicator confirmed your fear: occupied. A screen showed all the bathrooms on the train, each one occupied in turn. Something wet slid across your cunt.

You started to move, pushing your way past commuters jammed in the aisle of the carriage, none of them giving you space to move. The wet thing was sliding across you, probing your holes for purchase. You reached the front of the carriage, hammering the "open" button on the door that would get you to the front alcove, and relative privacy.

It didn't respond. A thin tendril probed your clitoral hood, pushing under it to nestle next to the fleshy nub of your clit. It was cold, the low temperature sending an aching needle through your abdomen. It moved, slightly at first, then with growing speed and vigour. The tendril fucked the fold of skin over your most sensitive place. Aggressively thrusts and rubbing. Cold slime oozed. The consistency of vaseline. It slopped around your cunt. Another tendril joined. This went for your pussy. A third for your asshole. Cold lube covered you. Your legs hurt. You couldn't stand. An armrest stopped your fall. Clinging on with both hands. Doubled over.

Your face was in a man's lap. You panted there. The man looked down at you, clinging to his armrest, panting and whining. Your back arching and your ass held up. He looked around before opening his fly. He fumbled out his cock, thick and uncircumcised.

A tendril invaded your ass. You gasped as it slipped inside, pushing you forward an inch. The man in the seat took that as an approval. His fingers clutched the back of your hair, maneuvering you around to kneel, legs under the seat in front. The man next to him dozed against the window, dead to the world. His cock rubbed over your face as the third tendril rubbed your pussy, aiming for the last unviolated hole.

A sucker planted itself on your clit, pulling on it as the first one still tried to find an opening in the skin at the top of your vulva. You moaned, a wave of pleasure joining a sharp pain as your unprepared body was subjected to such attention.

The cock went straight to your throat. The tip of his foreskin tickled your tonsils as your throat tightened against him, trying to gag. His fist tightened, gripping your hair close to the scalp as his hips gyrated into your face. Hand and hips, working in perfect tandem to fuck your face while three tentacles abused your cunt.

It was just too much. Your hips rolled as muffled moans flowed from you. Your hands moved unbidden, one clutching the man's unshaven balls, rolling them between your fingers as the other wrapped around the base of his cock, jacking him off into your mouth. The muscles in your lower abdomen flexed and worked as one, milking the tentacles inside you. You felt them spill their cold payload into you, spraying and squirting even as you tried in vain to hump and grind against them.

The two in your holes withdrew, the third was leaking that cold fluid over your clit and down your legs. Another two took the well-prepared place of them as the man groaned and held you down, spurting his spunk down your throat.

Your heart sank, he finished so deep in your throat you didn't even get to taste it. You pulled his cock out of your mouth and started licking it, paying special attention to the head. A few drops of precious cum still seeped out, bitter and metallic.

The best thing you've ever tasted.

The new tentacles went deeper. You could feel the one in your ass worming its way through you, distending your belly as it found its way up you.

Your hand left the man's cock, slipping down tot under your panties. The tentacles were coming from who-knows where, but that's not what you cared about.

Your questing fingers found the tentacle on your clit, rubbing at it, feeling it squeezing out the cold cum as it pulsed and shook on you. Two more orgasms washed over you as the tentacle outperformed any vibrator you'd ever used, sucking and shaking, making you squeak and squirm, voice muffled by the spent cock in your mouth.

You felt the train slowing. The tentacles receded and the portal closed. You gave the man a small kiss on the cheek as you made for the door.

You got off, and collapsed into a chair on the platform. Your phone buzzed again.

"Congratulations on passing your interview with Creadle and Crabnuts Innovations. We will be in touch."

What kind of job did you just get?

#########################################

Does it show when I'm writing about something that's 1000% my kink? Does it suck that portal fucking isn't really a thing that can ever exist?

Both of the answers to these questions are "yes"

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bigfatbreak · 1 year ago

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Hi, I've been wanting to start my own comics of my own story and I was wondering if you'd have any recommendations or tips for beginners please? I've admired your consistency with feralnette for so long!

just start it. like, for real

even if you start it and its really bad, like utter slop, you'll gain skills from just MAKING a comic. generally designing dialogue and blocking out the scene loosely is a good way to keep a good flow and rhythm, but you'll start to get a feel for it the more you work on drawing it. no matter what, by your end result, even if your beginning was near godly in its presentation you'll likely see things you could change by how much better you've gotten. and you can always go back and restart it, redraw it, redesign it. this isn't corporate and there's no HR here telling you to submit a final paper. just get on that horse and RIIIIDE BAYBEE

#replies

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crow-caller · 13 days ago

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I've been contacted multiple times now for a scam on this site which is...

If someone contacts You, asking you to buy a commission (with listed reasons too like rent or food)... you need to watch out. All scams are shitty, but this one especially is taking advantage of an inclination to trust people and want to help :/ you should always, of course, verify where your money is going before you send it

Multiple times after posting with the word 'commission' in it, I've had accounts reach out asking if I'm buying any. Once the post in question was me being excited i had a commission in progress— definitely not a rime im likely to be buying another, but the scammer was likely just searching for any use of the word and messaging en masse

The accounts have art on them, but all reblogged or posted in a short time frame, fairly recent, and only a page or two total. This art is stolen, usually from very small artists, making it harder to backtrace. Talking to the person will be quite rushed towards reaching a payment. But there isn't necessarily one obvious script here

I'm just saying.... generally, artists don't reach out from the blue to ask you to commission them. People can work in various styles, but check someone's page. Reverse image search if there's any hackles raised. Legitimate people do have new accounts or no professional profile, and may need money desperately... but there are 100% scammers out there too.

It feels extremely shitty to accuse someone of being a scammer, but if you don't feel you can trust them, you can ALWAYS politely decline and refuse further conversation. "I'm not looking to commission right now, but thank you".

(In slightly similar scam watch, my ancientass never used Fictionpress has been overflowing with a similar but more obvious version of this— someone going "I love your writing!! I'm an artist and would love to make art for your story?". I've received like 10 variations of this script now. They're either wanting money full stop, or hoping to get you to pay for AI slop.)

#the first time this happened to me i felt very awkwardly put out about someone asking me to commission them but #they needed money and seemed to have nice art and i felt guilty and sympathetic and pressured #and i was on edge the entire time but couldnt find any other postings of the art on their page so i chatted along #only when they sent me the most spam looking email address in the world did i feel confortable going “okay im sorry but i cant”#and looked more into them and found someone else discussing the person doing this previously under diff names #bc it feels SO shitty to accuse someone.#the horror of being wrong. especially if they are someone who needs help and just has a poor web presence #but unfortunately people will try to take advantage of your empathy and you should always be cautious about #sending money to a stranger on the internet. ive done it many many times and never been scammed #but im not immune and neither are you! just try to verify and be confident

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thisrandomstuff · 13 days ago

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Unlike some people, I actually DO blame families (and general audiences) who take their kids to watch live-action slop.

In the 21st century they have the option to:

Wait for something that's not a live-action remake to come out;

Watch something at home;

Search for indie animation online and watch that;

Buy popcorn, milkshakes, sodas, etc. outside of theaters/cinemas and just consume it at home while watching something at home

Wait for a screening of the older films in theaters, because those DO return to the big screen every now and again.

Adults aren't helpless children with no options; least of all those who can afford to go to the cinemas for this shit. Y'all just need to let go of your learned helplessness and start putting some respect on the creative process and animators.

Elio is coming out soon. So if you so badly want to watch something in theaters... there you go.

And DreamWorks movies DO return to the big screen from time to time. I've seen it happen with Kung Fu Panda 2 years back.

I also never got to watch the animated How to Train Your Dragon in cinemas when I was a kid. My family were also varying levels of broke back then. But I'm not here going to see the live-action remake just because "this might be the only time I get to do watch httyd in the cinemas".

This isn't a MUST. This isn't like needing to buy clothes, or food, or anything like that. You can go without watching movies in the cinema. That's a privilege, one some people are clearly keen on abusing to support this soulless plague of live-action remakes.

You know, there are people out there that went to school for animation in hopes it'd be their full-time job one day.

It's bad enough that these studios far too often underpay or exploit people. But for them to completely cut them out, or stomp over their works, or barely include animation so they can avoid paying for it?

Those of you who pay to see this sort of live-action stuff that only pushed studios away from animation pay to encourage studios to keep avoiding better treatment and more respect for their animators. You pay to keep the disrespect going and you pay to keep this a thing...

Remember how 2D got phased out of studios like Disney and DreamWorks?

So, no, you don't get to keep making cheap excuses. Learn from history, learn from the other remakes, and learn to control your urge to see everything on the big screen.

The great thing about those animated movies that got remade (not because there was much to be "improved", but because they were a commercial success, therefore presumed "safe") is that you could come out of it loving it without that cinema hype to build them up. You could fall in love with them long after they've stopped being the IT thing, because they're THAT good.

For the record: I DO also blame corporations. But you support these corporations when you don't HAVE to. You're all acting like Disney/DreamWorks has a gun to your head and is whispering "watch the live-action remake or you'll never get to see another movie again" into your ear.

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obsidiannebula · 6 months ago

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How to Spot AI-Generated Reference Texts

This morning I celebrated a lovely Christmas with my family. My 3 year old was ecstatic, I made my brother tear up, it was a good time. But I received something that at first, seemed like the kind of thing I would very much like to own... until I started actually looking through it. I quickly realized that this book is unmistakably AI-generated slop and should not be used or trusted as an actual reference guide. Having not been written by an actual expert in the field or even compiled by an actual researcher citing sources and synthesizing information, these books are at best three hundred pages of reading the first couple of sentences of a search result for each topic, and at worst full of dangerous misinformation that can get people killed, as with the rise of AI-generated mushroom foraging books. These are in no way reliable reference guides for anything, but especially for anything with potential health risks like ingesting plants and their compounds.

So today I'm going to try and get some good use out of this book I now own by using it to demonstrate how to spot AI-generated scam books.

The first red flags jump out at us right from the cover. This is "The Home Apothecary Full Collection: Your In-Depth Holistic Guide with Natural Herbal Remedies for Long-Lasting Wellness and Optimal Health." Yeesh, what a mouthful. A soulless, artless mouthful, I must add. But hey, maybe this author is a very clinical or verbose type. Except a quick search for the author's name, Megan Morren, quickly makes it clear that this is not a real person. There is one bare-bones Facebook profile for a Megan Morren, and no social media beyond that. No LinkedIn or Pinterest or mentions in an article, nothing. Every other result shows her books: this one, and two others nearly identical to it, with slightly different names but the same "1500+ Remedies/Extra Content" claim in the same corner, utilizing the same fonts and each with a very similar AI-generated background.

That's right, we've got a pretty bog-standard AI-generated image for the cover of this book, showcasing a variety of vaguely herbal plants and jars as well as several nonsensical non-objects.

Okay, so the cover was definitely made by AI, but maybe this author is writing under a pseudonym and visually just not very creative. Let's open it up and took a look at...

Oooookay so that's how we're getting the "40 books in one" claim touted on the cover. What most people would call a chapter is here billed as an entire book, with each subtopic considered its own chapter. There's not more than two or three "chapters" per "book" and most of the chapters are only one or two pages long, which is some James Patterson-ass shit. At least if Patterson had written this book there'd be a little character to the narration and an attempt at wit, but as we'll soon see, the actual writing is... wanting, to say the least.

Obviously the first observation here is that formatting is for the BIRDS. No paragraph breaks or indents, and the paragraphs are all of roughly similar length. Furthermore, the writing reads like a copy/pasted Wikipedia page. Scratch that, I went ahead and typed "history of herbal healing" into a search engine and found the actual Wikipedia page for "History of herbalism," which actually does provide more detail on the topic as well as FIFTY-FOUR ACTUAL SOURCES and some recommended further reading, making it vastly superior to this slop. Because there's not a single source cited in this entire book, nor is there an author bio here or online that remotely suggests that the author might have some experience and expertise from which they are drawing to write or even fact-check this book.

On top of that, there is truly no authorial voice whatsoever. Even if you wanted to be very academic about it and avoid using first-person in your reference book, there should at least be some synthesizing of sources and information, expanding on the ideas presented and combining them to draw new conclusions or illustrate points. But everything here is incredibly surface-level, like someone copied the first sentence or three from the first Google result and stuck it there and then moved on to the next bullet point in the outline.

Seriously, this whole book is just page after page of walls of text. It's a nightmare to try to read if you have any sort of reading-impairing disorder like dyslexia or ADHD, and it's also just kind of ugly. And in a book supposedly about herbalism, there is not a single image or diagram. That's wild to me. There is nothing in here to aid with plant identification or demonstrate the tincturing or decocting processes or anything. I've never read an herbalism book without a single picture or diagram. Granted, I've only read a handful, but still, it seems very strange to me. And god did these endless blocks of text need SOMETHING to break them up.

Also these introductory paragraphs just scream "obligatory" to me. They're all a single paragraph of approximately the same length, providing a perfunctory and colorless overview of the subject matter. I mean, seriously? We're starting off "uplifting herbs for depression" with "Depression affects millions globally. It is characterized by x and y. While it is conventional treated with medication and therapy, there are also some herbs that can improve mood." It's so bland and robotic and uninformative. I think most fifth graders could write a better introductory paragraph, as long as we didn't penalize them for spelling or grammar.

I'd really like to get back to spending the holiday with family, so I'm going to leave it at that. It's just so frustrating to see books like this pushing legitimate texts written by real people with real expertise or at least personality out of bookshelves and searches, propagating useless or even dangerous information in place of sharing real knowledge and traditions. I had to rant a little bit and get it off my chest.I wish everyone a safe and happy holiday season, and all the best for 2025. Everyone, that is, except "Megan Morren." Whoever you really are, I hope you step on Legos every day for the rest of your life. It's the least you deserve for publishing trash like this.

#scam awareness #herbalism #bad books #the home apothecary full collection

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bkbs-art · 10 months ago

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PSA - PLEASE be wary about that AI generated Klance piece going around. It genuinely sucks that that image got so much traction. I don't think people have realised because the tags here get hidden, but the 'artist' has tagged it as ai assisted. All but two pieces in their gallery on twt is a mockery of the true art op is actually capable of.

This artist genuinely draws wonderfully but gave in to ai slop. Please check the tags of what you're reblogging and liking, AI works are a serious drag: it's got environmental issues and it's art theft. (Poster mentioned in tags)

I hate the idea of a call out post, but we absolutely do NOT need AI in fandom. I don't care if this is considered rude or unkind. Understand how this impacts so many people.

Don't harass the poster - just unlike, unfollow, unreblog and block them before moving on.

To the poster: your traditional art is LOVELY! I can't understand why you put your wips into a generator, it changes it completely, it takes away everything that's youand turns into into someone else piece. That someone else's style is stolen, and everything about this is lazy and unethical. You are literally better than this.

Please share this post as far as you can

#klance #keith kogane #vld #voltron #lance mcclain #lance #vld lance #voltron legendary defender #voltron lance #voltron fanart #a PSA #ai art is disgusting #pick up your pencil and use it #i #poster is #charliecat700

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aeromore · 5 months ago

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META META META META META META META META. Old art dump from earlier this year, more under the keep reading thing.

RIDER IS THERE. That's just really a secondary name for Stanley to keep track of the guys (there's three of them, that's also why they're numbered). I meant to finish this drawing and have Aleph (another narrator... Specifically number 2) respond to Meta and have PK (Stanley-2) stand next to him, but I didn't have a design for that guy at this current point in time and just left it unfinished. Also, I love Rider. Rider is lovely and very kind, I hope he suffers very much Soon.

Ditto. Ditto's just happy to be here, Meta less so. Hates being proven wrong, too. It is SO hard to choose whether he'd be a Ditto or a Meltan as a pokémon, considering you CAN spell Meta with the letters in Meltan. I eventually went with the latter and had Ditto be on his team, like a constant mockery of him. <- That's how HE sees it. Ditto couldn't care less and just wants to have fun. (Also, he shapeshifted those eyes into existence by the way, he does not usually have eyes under his glasses. LET THE GUY EXPRESS HIMSELF.)

Vitan. (Character belonging to @mct421 / @a-game-of-beginnings) Sorry, I had and still have a crush on this idiot but also he's a very lovely character, please check 'em out on the second @. Meta is reasonably upset/peeved/mad about me turning him into a vertical pancake and also making fun of him for ... a large variety of things. I'll just say he doesn't get treated the best out of my narrators (it's a cuteness aggression thing, and also i hate him (affectionately)). SO, I let it slide that he's making fun of me by shapeshifting into my F/O or crush or whatever he is. Whatever it is, I've proposed to him (VITAN) three times at this point because I either keep forgetting I did or I just want to recreate the scenario since it's funny.

SOMETHING ACTUALLY INTERESTING OF NOTE: When Meta shapeshifts, the eyes always have this green color (not the green in the drawing, that was a lazy doodle, the CORRECT color is #70A083) and the hair is silvery at the roots.

Dumb idiot flawed shapeshifter, couldn't be me. <- Could be me. Is me.

Dressed him up in silly outfits, some of which he hates and some that he is fine with.

Was bought Webfishing by a friend of mine back in October, so I pretty quickly whipped a little complementary drawing of Meta as a fish (nice callback) and @nonsensechemicals's settings person as a lil fish too ":o" (it's a callback to one of their drawings but I don't really have it on hand right now). The guy in the middle was my sona at the time, now they look different. YOU try being a shapeshifter and see how long you can last being on one look.

Silly shitposts and whatnot. I love Meta, my idiot blob son, slime-like thing. Thank you, Rider, for showing him that sick skateboard trick in the parking lot (press conference/elevator ending reference for Those Who Don't Know).

The second image is a screenshot taken from that one art instillation with the jiggling things whatever they are. <- Quickly looked it up, "Graceful Degradation", a kinetic installation by Harrison Pearce at the GNYP Gallery. Wouldn't wanna leave you guys at the edge of your seat wanting to learn what that was.

The third image is me and MrPizzaDraws on twitter drawing our Favorite Blob ever. Check Pizza out, he's cool, especially if you're someone from the Object Show Community or like art in general.

Fourth image.... Not much to say here. Meta as those sticky hand things. I call it handslops. And the fifth image is him being slop in a red plastic cup. Wonderful.

And at the very bottom is an actually proper and simple drawing of the guy, of course. IF... IF ANYONE HAS QUESTIONS ABOUT ANYTHING, feel free to click on that funny questionnaero button. I'd love to bestow knowledge. This is ALL a heavy work in process, so be patient if my answers aren't that great, haha.

And if you're wondering (because I sure am), the three parable thing is really an AU in all honesty, since that's not how the actual Stanley Parable is built up, to our knowledge, but I like having fun and still try keeping it close to game lore and whatnot. I just find it easier to understand the game if I break it apart into smaller pieces/people, hope that's relatable.

#the stanley parable #the stanley parable ultra deluxe #tsp narrator #tsp stanley #aeroodles #aerorambles #t3p meta #t3p rider

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