istilldontunderstand

[istilldontunderstand]

Signs you may need to take a break from ao3/tumblr for a little bit:

an author/blog being “mean” to your favorite character causes you uncontrollable anger

an author/blog being “mean” to your favorite character feels like a personal attack on you

a fic makes you depressed for several days (not just sad, but uncontrollable crying, depression, despair)

you feel like your mental health is hinging on the outcome of a WIP or cliffhanger

you’re making threats, death threats, etc on anon or leaving abusive comments

you’re unable/unwilling to block/mute people who cause these reactions

[istilldontunderstand]

MAY YOU NEVER LOSE YOUR HYPERFIXATION

[istilldontunderstand]

Doggust Day 4: Maltese. Making my way downtown. 🍂

[istilldontunderstand]

after 1500 years, Merlin's memory of Arthur isn't quite what it used to be (insta | timelapse here! | commissions/prints | tiktok) ✨

[istilldontunderstand]

[istilldontunderstand]

Občas se mě v okolí ptají, proč jsem emigrovala. Zde je seznam mých oblíbených odpovědí:

- Vláda se doslechla, že nemám ráda houby/pivo/utopence, a sebrala mi občanství.

- Hledám dům holubí.

- Toužím dostat úkol poněkud neobvyklého rázu.

- Jela jsem z Budějovic rychlíkem linky 666 a místo do Plzně mě vyhodil tady.

- Hledám Liptákov.

- Počkej tohle není Humpolec??

- V Českých Budějovicích by chtěl žít každý. Kromě mě teda.

- Dědeček mě poslal sbírat červy.

- Omylem jsem začala občanskou válku, když jsem se zeptala, jak kdo říká bramboráku (což je pravda, pro čumblr veterány lol)

- Chci najít onu bájnou zPlzeň, aby mohli moji potomci říct, že jsou ze zPlzně (nechystám se mít potomky)

- Tak dlouho jsem šla na sever, až jsem najednou šla na jih.

- Odešla jsem uražena, nebo pro uzenku. Sama nevím.

[istilldontunderstand]

A lil drawing from my drawing session on magma! Thanks everyone who joined, it was so fun!

[istilldontunderstand]

Since late 2021, I had been working on illustrating a Chinese version of The Hobbit. The book was published in August 2024.

After all these years, a dream came true. ❤️

[istilldontunderstand]

Merlin + Text Posts: Merwaine Edition

[istilldontunderstand]

[istilldontunderstand]

the term “ai fanfiction/fanart” is such an oxymoron because AI cannot be a fan. it’s not involved in fandom spaces, it has no passion nor sentimental preference, it doesn’t dream about its beloved blorbo, nor can it be horny for their fave. it’s just a button click for fake creators that’ll steal stuff. hence “ai fan-xyz” and ai `art´ do not exist

​

[istilldontunderstand]

may all your favorite fanfic writers never lose their hyperfixation and love for your blorbos so they keep writing fanfics about your blorbos forever

[istilldontunderstand]

'kids these days have it easy' thats the point thats the point thats the whole point we're here to make it better for whoever comes after you sad selfish self absorbed puddle of wank

[istilldontunderstand]

Hello I miss my Anie again

Fuck

One of my long distance coworkers (so to say) sounds like Anie

And I'm here, preening every time she calls and needs help bc I get to hear her voice and it feels like she's back and I

[istilldontunderstand]

If ANY of yall EVER do this shit to me, im deleting every single fic out of spite.

If I ever catch one of yall doing this to another author and I know youre a follower of my work I will block you personally on every platform

None of yall are the fic police. I DESPISE genai. I think its an insult to art, humanity, and the planet itself. But aint not a single fucking person here qualified to pick apart a strangers fic looking for a gotcha moment to make yourselves feel superior. If you think something is ai you can ask the author (most are proud of the ai use and will just tell you straight up) if they say yes you have your answer and can warn people. If they say no and you dont believe them you block and quietly keep it between you and maybe a close group of friends. Spreading misinformation is DANGEROUS. And NONE of you doing this shit are anywhere near qualified to do it.

THIS GOES DOUBLY FOR ARTISTS.

[istilldontunderstand]

Another reason to ignore negative comments (especially on AO3)

So at work I’ve been forced to learn about “AI Agentic Workflows”. But being an AO3 author, I couldn’t help but think of how this technology affects authors on AO3 (and honestly on other social media platforms too).

What I learned was this: Agentic AI workflow software makes it extremely easy to automate, and bulk-post, HIGHLY-STORY-SPECIFIC negative comments to AO3 fics.

If you’re not familiar with what an AI Agentic Workflow is, I highly recommend informing yourself. You’ll be hearing it a LOT very soon. Basically, it’s a linked linked chain of AI prompts on one/many software platforms. Each “agent” completes a task. Then it hands off the completed task to the next AI Agent in the chain, which builds on it. Then that result is handed off to another agent, etc etc, even potentially to a final agent which analyzes what worked well and what didn’t, and changes what the other agents do.

There are a ton of repercussions here.

But let’s stay focused on AO3.

With AI Agentic workflow software, a person/group who wants to silence the voice of a community can easily scrape a tag, analyze stories by the thousands, then post thousands of highly customized, story specific negative comments, all without a human being ever seeing your words.

They could even set up AI agents watching to see if you delete your story, or delete your profile, which would be a marker of success. That success marker could be shared back to the other AI agents, and the whole workflow could be changed via automation to use that more effective approach.

I’m sure the OTF is working on ways of stopping this. I’m sure most social media companies are too.

But as usual the tools to create havoc are ahead of the ones to prevent havoc.

Anyway.

TL;DR: If you get a highly-story-specific negative AO3 comment — it does NOT MEAN it was written by a HUMAN! You were probably just story 20,031 in a scraped database of 50,000 stories, all of which were being targeted because they belong to a group/topic/tag that some shitty group or agency wanted to silence because of their horrible political or social.

Don’t let them silence you. They never looked at your words to begin with.

[istilldontunderstand]