milquetoast27

[milquetoast27]

Dear Bertie, I have rather a pressing question for you. Would you rather fight one horse-sized duck or a hundred duck-sized horses? Food for thought and all that.

By Jove, that is a pressing question!

To be perfectly honest, I’d rather not fight at all. Bertram wasn’t really one to swing a fist in his youth but rather one to catch it with his face, and I’m afraid that hasn’t changed a bit.

Though if I had to choose, I’d probably pick the horse-sized duck. It’s only one target, you see, and while ducks can be quite vicious, Jeeves in his infinite wisdom told me their hollow bones are quite easy to break. And if I’m allowed this pedantry, your question did not specify exactly what it means by horse-sized. So if the duck is the size of one of the hundred duck-sized horses, well then it’s just the regular duck-sized duck, what?

[milquetoast27]

ARRESTED FOR MY CUTE CULINARY APPLE RABBITS !!!! this is an outrage they are apple spleeny

good luck @cinny13 @maybe-a-gatto-or-a-catto @absolutekobold @sillafox

Found this on Twitter, so I thought, why not posting it here and doing a tag game 😊

Ok, I’ll go first

If he is the reason, I’d go to prison gladly 🥰❤️‍🔥

Tagging: @killerqueen-ofwillowgreen @nic-214 @milkyway-ashes @dr-radiation @whitequeen-ofwillowgreen @sunsetdaydreamer @therockywhorerpictureshow @delicatelyfantasticninja and everyone 😊

Sorry if I forgot to tag some of you!

[milquetoast27]

[milquetoast27]

Bertie Wooster is the most ace character I've ever witnessed. I sensed it a little from the show, but the books scream it.

Alternatively, Jeeves is a patron saint for asexuals everywhere being forced into relationships by pushy relatives. Pray to him and he will assure those wedding bells do NOT ring out.

[milquetoast27]

Finally managed to draw how I see these two when reading. Bertie is kinda pointy and bird like to me

[milquetoast27]

todays posts are sponsored by this'a bunny i found

[milquetoast27]

Looking at some of your work, it is stunning but it is very similar in style to AI artwork, do you have any recommendations for how to tell apart photography like yours from AI.

I've been thinking about this. And this may sound controversial at first, but I'm hoping people will hear me out.

We should stop trying so hard to detect AI art.

I think we should all lift that burden from our brains.

I have often talked about "woke goggles." Where conservatives have lost the ability to enjoy anything because they are hypervigilant about detecting anything woke. They've cursed themselves into just hating everything. All they have left is the "God's Not Dead" Cinematic Universe.

And I worry people are getting AI goggles now. They are so concerned about accidentally enjoying robot art and hurting artists that they have overcorrected to the point where they are hurting artists.

One cannot say "AI is all soulless slop that always looks bad" and then accuse a real artist of making something that looks like AI and not hurt them. By doing so, it includes the baggage of all of the "slop" comments along with it. This crusade is having collateral damage to the very artists we are trying to protect.

Yes, we need to be cautious about malicious AI images. Misinformation and deepfakes are going to be a big problem. People using AI imagery for profit is already a mess. But if you are cruising your feed and like a cool sci-fi robot gal or a photo of a waterfall and it turns out to be AI... that's fine.

It was trained by real artists and AI is going to create some cool shit because of that.

Honestly, I think a lot of the worst slop is because the dipshits creating the prompts have no artistic taste. People keep blaming the AI for how bad it looks and often don't consider it is a product of the loser who published it.

There is plenty of non-slop out there that has fooled me. And, like it or not, it is going to get harder and harder to tell what is AI. Until there are better tools or better regulations, I don't think there is much we can do to avoid enjoying AI art every once in a while. If only by accident.

Current "AI detectors" are mostly a scam. Even the best forensic-level AI image detectors struggle to stay above 70–80% accuracy across a wide range of models and image types. And that's in controlled lab conditions.

Free online tools often drop to near coin-flip accuracy (50–60%), especially with newer image generators and post-processing applied.

The best way to avoid AI imagery is to look at an artist's body of work. It's much harder to create consistent, non-obvious fake images in a large sample size. That is usually enough to have confidence in authenticity. Plus, if they have posted similar art before 2022, you can pretty much rule out any shenanigans.

Otis literally died before genAI was available.

But images you see in the wild, just let yourself enjoy them if that is what your brain wants to do. It'll be okay.

I just think we are attacking this backwards. If we want to protect artists, we need to support them.

Calling out random AI art does not support them.

It does not put money in their pockets.

It does not grow their audience.

Over a decade ago I tried to lead a fight to create better systems of attribution on websites like Reddit and Imgur. I even spoke to the Imgur team after an article was written about me.

I asked them to allow sources on their posts and to develop tech that would help people find where an image came from. They said they were "working on it" and it never manifested.

IMAGE SHARING SITES STEAL MORE FROM ARTISTS THAN AI.

But we just kind of accepted it. No one really joined me in my fight. The prevailing defeatist attitude was, "That's just the way it is."

I think now is the time to demand better attribution systems. We need to be vigilant about making sure as many posts as possible have good sourcing. If an image on Reddit goes viral, the top comment should be the source. And if it isn't, you should try to find it and add it.

Just to be clear, "credit to the original artist" is NOT proper attribution.

And perhaps we can lobby these image sharing sites to create better sourcing systems and tools. They could even use fucking AI to find the earliest posted version of an image.

And it would be nice if it didn't require people to go into the comments to find the source. It could just be in the headline. They could even create little badges "made by a human" for verified artists.

Good attribution helps artists grow their audience. It is one of the single most effective things you can do to help them.

I literally just got this message...

There are maybe 10 popular artists who I helped grow their audience early on. Just because I reblogged their work and added links to all of their social media. I even hired my best friend to add sourcing information to every post because I believed so much in good attribution.

Calling out AI art may feel good in the moment. You caught someone trying to trick people and it feels like justice. But, in most cases, the tangible benefits to real artists seem small. It impedes your ability to enjoy art without always being suspicious. And the risk of telling someone you think they make soulless slop doesn't seem worth it.

But putting that time and effort into attribution *would* be worth it. I have proven it time and time again.

I also think people should consider having a monthly art budget. I don't care if it is $5. But if we all commit to seeking out cool artists and being their collective patrons, we could really make a difference and keep real art alive. Just commit to finding a cool new artist every month and financially contributing to them in some way.

On a bigger scale I think advocating for universal basic income, art grants for education and creation, and government regulation of AI would all be helpful long term goals. Though I think our friends in Europe may have to take the lead on regulation at the moment.

So...

Stop worrying about enjoying or calling out AI art.

Demand better attribution from image sharing sites.

Make sure all art has a source listed.

Start an art budget.

Advocate for better regulations.

[milquetoast27]

[milquetoast27]

I was listening to Richard Briers in a BBC radio play adaptation of Joy in the Morning and I have to note that Jeeves says the "Not at all, sir," with a very detectable fond chuckle to it and it warms my heart very much 🥺

“I shall miss you, Jeeves.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Who was the chap who was always beefing about losing gazelles?”

“The poet Moore, sir. He complained that he had never nursed a dear gazelle, to glad him with its soft black eye, but when it came to know him well and love him, it was sure to die.”

“It’s the same with me. I am a gazelle short. You don’t mind me alluding to you as a gazelle, Jeeves?”

“Not at all, sir.”

this is so ridiculous

[milquetoast27]

Edward Petherbridge and Emily Richard in Busman’s Honeymoon

[milquetoast27]

# bitch excuse me

[milquetoast27]

Sam Handwich.

[milquetoast27]

hello, hello, thanks for tagging me @b2bmild !

Colour: Light blue is 100% my favourite colour. I suppose colours you won't see me associated with is fuschia or any vivid purple.

Season: I always get the most excited to witness spring blooming, and grey, glum winters are always the toughest.

Item of Clothing: You're talking to a Jeeves fan, I have way too many sartorial favourites. My absolute no. 1 favourite has to be spats. I am not a fan of animal fur prints (e.g. leopard print or snake scales), regardless of if they're real or artificial.

This bit is going to be hard! I do not watch films very often nor am I as attentive to them as I am to literature.

4. Comedy Film: Sherlock Gnomes is my favourite film of all time so I suppose it's also my favourite comedy film. Holmes and Watson is completely horrible and offends me on a personal level. I could not finish it.

5. Action Film: Sherlock Holmes with Robert Downey Junior I enjoy a lot, not specifically FOR the action elements, but it is an action film nonetheless. Least favourite N/A. I've seen films like Fight Club and Kill Bill but found them too good I would not put them under "least favourite".

6. Movie Genre: Films adapting literature are the kind I watch most frequently. These can be good or bad, but I'm always on board to seeing how text is adapted to drama. Fantasy, sci-fi, but especially super hero films I struggle to get into the space of.

7. Music Genre: Music hall/musical composers like Leslie Sarony, Irving Berlin and any of the ones featuring the London Strand. I've listened to a good bit of pop music from the 2020s and honestly I am not keen on it.

8. Desserts: Affogato and/or cheesecake I always choose. Generally I won't accept chocolate cake, except once a year when I inexplicably crave it.

Tagging @cinny13 , @maybe-a-gatto-or-a-catto and @absolutekobold da hommiesss. no pressure of course.

answer what are your favourite and least favourite for the list below and send to at least 3 of your mutuals

whats your favourite and least favourite 1 color 2 season 3 item of clothing 4 comedy movie 5 action movie 6 movie genre 7 music genre 8 dessert

My favorite color changes daily. Right now it’s butter yellow. Least favorite will always be crayola crayon pink. It’s just ugly and mine always picked up dirt and hairs and thinking of it grosses me out.

I like autumn, and spring. Less a summer fan.

Currently, my Oreo socks. Least fave, probably one of those skirts that my mom won’t let me get rid of.

Favorite Comedy? The Princess Bride. I have Basic Bitch syndrome. Least fave…I rarely watch movies, so I can’t think of a time I watched something that I wasn’t super certain about…there are a lot of comedy shows that I didn’t like, I kind of found Friends to be annoying.

Action movie: BATMAN VS TMNT!!!!!!!!! I do not favor the ninjago movie.

I like action, sci-fi, mystery, fantasy, so long as it’s animated. A live action show has to be REALLY good for it to keep my attention.

My favorite genre is whatever the latest Sonic game’s soundtrack is. Least favorite: whatever Shape of you is.

I like ice cream. And red velvet cake. I do not like Halva.

@amypihcs

@b2bmild

@andy-the-irregular

[milquetoast27]

a topping morning in the old metrop.

[milquetoast27]

[milquetoast27]

happy pride month to Bertie “if a woman comes near me I will start swinging a blackjack to get away” Wooster

[milquetoast27]

Touch Detective (or Mystery Detective in the UK/Europe), released in 2011 on the Nintendo DS, was a very fun game for me to play through, and I want to share some spoiler-heavy thoughts. Not only do I recommend playing the game (I finished it under twenty-four hours), but my post will make more sense if you’ve played it for yourself.

            Touch Detective is a detective game filled with quirks, which explores the shaky condition of adolescent existence, or more pointedly, the state between child and adult, which manifests in the odd environment of the game. Lady Mackenzie, its protagonist, shows a semantic knowledge of a child, but an emotional or even spiritual state of an adult, hardened by experiences not mentioned in the game, but which can be pieced together. This unusual mixture is reflected in her perception of the world which is the presentation of the game itself.

            Mackenzie is very childish in her semantic knowledge. In the first case, which is all about nighttime dreams, she never catches onto the difference between dreams had when asleep and long-term aspirational dreams. She asks people on the street, “Tell me about your dreams”, intending to get answer on sleep-dreams, but gets responses like, “my dream was to be an athlete but it fell through”. Mackenzie misses this distinction, simply makes a note, and carries on. Similarly, the second case takes place at a planetarium, and Mackenzie also makes no distinction between astronomy and astrology. She speaks to a scientist and a fortune teller, who both have very different understandings of the stars, readily accepting both and missing their very distinctive approaches. Like any child, her vocabulary and knowledge of the world is low and thus she cannot properly consider or refute anything she is told because she simply has not been long in the world enough to know how.

            The third case, “Stranded”, exhibits how Mackenzie is also a grown up. She is the only one of her friend group who cannot see the fairy who is stuck at the ice rink. Cromwell tells her that one must be “young at heart” in order to see a fairy, and that Mackenzie is probably too grown up to believe in them. Her adulthood lies in her spiritual state, as this affair makes it clear she is not “young at heart”—she is an adult at heart. Taken in conjunction with her wide, shadowed eyes and her very phlegmatic manner, there is a sense of external restraint about her, for her intense emotions only come out in very little ways. For example, the expressions in her Touch List are very alive with her feeling for different textures, as are the little drawings in her Detective File. Most importantly, she is able, very briefly, to hear the voice of the fairy at the end of “Stranded”. Despite, in her most grown-up moment, having seen through the Fortune Teller’s ruse, she gets to the core of the meaning of youthfulness—to simply believe in it, and one shall have it.

            There is a strong suggestion that Mackenzie is an orphaned aristocrat, being in turn the cause of her cool exterior. I am not certain how the game is using the title “Milady”. However, paired with absent parents and only the presence of the butler, Cromwell, I believe she inherited the title from her father, who may have been a lord or an earl, from whom she also inherited the detective agency. Due to this assertion, I add that her Touch List is representative of an obsessive coping habit; that to categorise every texture systematically by type, emotion and intensity offers a sense of stability, which no doubt is a relief in her bereavement. That said, her father could very well be a duke and left the family butler to take care of Mackenzie in his absence. Either way it's read, there is a suggestion of some tension with her parents.

            With all the evidence I have given above, the game’s presentation of an odd and whimsical world fits well. There is a quality to it of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, in the sense that Mackenzie’s world is presented as generally illogical and strange, as it would be to any child. Adults tell children things who simply have to acquiesce because they don’t understand the systems or vocabulary they refer to. For example, how some (most adult) characters are animals, and others human, or Cromwell’s oddly blue skin. There is the NPC outside Naked Bones who occasionally appears, offering very strange fortunes based on a limited selection of dreams, the other NPC obsessed only with exercise. But particularly the interaction with Shorty, who runs the hot dog stand, who will decide which order is best for Mackenzie, and most significantly, one which is always different to what the player chooses. Mackenize objects to none of this because her status as child enforces her to be submissive. However, many of Mackenzie's comments on the cases she's solved are a lot more critical than her attitude towards them at the time—there is a glimpse of her grip of the world coming into development.

            Touch Detective’s characters explore what it means to grow up, and how it can happen at different stages at the same time. “Stranded” demonstrates that one’s path is not always fixed, and has room for back-pedal. The game explores the oddities of being a child in an adults' world, but also the great joy that a youthfulness of the heart brings, and that to obtain it, one must merely “believe”.

            I admit here that my reading has no idea what to make of the fourth case, “Assault”. There is something to be read in the Circus Master conditioning fleas so they no longer jump and its connection to how children are reared, but nothing so satisfying to slot with the rest of my exploration. I finished this game in under twenty-four hours and had a great time with it! I am very gratified by how much I could draw from it with my attentive eye, and I do see it as something just a little bit more than a random, niche crappy licensed DS game—it really does touch(!) the heart.