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Venti did nothing wrong (that you can prove).

Massacre, Torture, Patricide, attempted fratricide// Forgery, Rebellion, Usurpation, Theft, etc. etc.

Finally, a draw your OTP meme that is also an excuse to draw their matching photocards

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Fun fact: I have grown up in Poland, a deeply Catholic country. It is a thing that every few years you will get an adaptation of some important Polish book you read in school (it's Patriotic and also you will get profit because all the relevant age groups will go see it with their school). And, except if it's a piece with a lot of pathos and not much else, you will often get some naked boobies somewhere. Just. Hanging there. Some celebration. Someone bathing. Not HBO-like full eye candy shots, just a little fanservice. it is odd to think if that happened in an American movie that wasn't rated 18+ the parents would have a fit.

Lines of thought that seem Normal but are actually rooted in extreme puritanism:

-Seeing the nude human body is inherently traumatic -Sex scenes in art are pointless -Wearing kink-related clothing in public is the similar to performing a sex scene in front of unwilling participants -Depicting female characters expressing sexuality is always degrading -People's sexual fantasies are always an endorsement of the behavior they want to see in real life -Sex work is more traumatic and coercive than other types of work The goal is to treat sex as just another thing people do. That is a much healthier attitude than hiding it! It's not uniquely traumatic, it's not weird to talk about it or include it in society.

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The legend of Spider Georg(ia)

There is a forbidden type of magic out there. It isn’t forbidden because it’s inherently evil, or forces you to lose your humanity, or requires human sacrifices - it’s just forbidden because it’s annoying as heck to fight against.

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Yet another post on art and AI on the godsforsaken internet

I've been in a weird mood and have been half-conscious for the past two days so if this doesn't make sense to anyone else that's not my problem. In the age of automated image generation I found my answer to what art is, which also overlaps with the ever-present question what artist's personal style is. It's using the medium and means and experience you have to say something, show something, the hundreds, thousands of tiny decisions, conscious or unconscious, the knowledge you have, are guessing or just bullshitting through, putting the feelings you have or ones you want to evoke into whatever you're creating, so you whisper, say, scream out your soul at whomever may witness it, if they ever do. You take your soul and emotions and push it, through the pencil tip, through the brush, through the keyboard, though concrete that makes a building, through a chisel that creates a shape, an object, a sound, and you hope that whomever encounters it will marvel at it, see the beauty or the ugliness or the bafflement or whatever you tried to express; or maybe you did not try to express anything in particular, the beholder is your collaborator, their perception is part of your art; or maybe you create just for yourself, hide the final product, destroy it, reveling just in in the creation and destruction, a secret between only you and whichever unseen forces are there. The final result may be important, but the act of creation is as much, if not more. Or maybe it's something completely different.

The reason people have argued over centuries what art is or isn't is because the answer is complex and also rooted in human society and the lines drawn often had to do more with class and money than actual creativity and expression. Still, art is deeply, inherently human. That means that yes, a child's drawing is art, your first teenage drawing of anime blorbo is art, Michaelangelo's David is art and yes even that boobily boobing hentai drawing is art. The most disgusting fetish art is art and the most vile fascist art is art. Now, we're not going to get into what is GOOD art, what art should be presented and celebrated in public spaces, limited public spaces and private - much smarter, more stupid and more pretentious people have debated it over the centuries and will keep on doing so. What about AI-generated things then? Well, first thing that comes to mind is this: https://inspirobot.me/

Inspirobot is a site that predates the present learning models - it's not an actual AI, it's just a site that takes fragments of motivational phrases ("X is like YZ", "the only way to X is to Y the Z" etc), randomly chooses words to put into them and combines them with stock photos of the type that are used for inspirational memes. The results are random, chaotic, sometimes funny and every once a while extremely profound. Present generation models are a slightly more complex version of exactly that - taking bits and pieces of existing things and going "this could statistically be linked to that". There isn't a thought behind what it produces, apart from the initial thoughts of the people who created the pieces it smashes together. Second thing that comes to mind, especially when techbros whine that "they perfected their word input to achieve this result" (funny to hear because that's also how artists have to work.. in search engines to find good references) is... workshops. If you have a workshop, a creative event, a gathering of creators of some kind, working in the same general medium and you give them all the same tools along with a prompt, theme, even the same basic composition.... What you'll get from each of them will be different, but in some way consistent with their art style/expression, because it has been filtered through THEM*. And THAT is exactly why it's art. [This is also why there's such a different reaction to inspiration vs. plagiarism. Inspiration is taking a thing, passing it through yourself and presenting something new; even if you are not aware exactly how, you are entering a dialog with the OG creation. Plagiarism is taking someone else's creation and trying to pass it off by yours, which is a perverse form of identity fraud, only it's not the legal identity but the internal one. Yes, even anime boobies. Draw your own.]

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Goodluck Pikachu

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I hope every writer who sees this writes LOADS the next few months. Like freetime opens up, no writers block, the ability to focus, etc etc you're able to write loads & make lots of progress <3

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Do you think authors sometimes don't realize how their, uh, interests creep into their writing? I'm talking about stuff like Robert Jordan's obvious femdom kink, or Anne Rice's preoccupation with inc*st and p*dophilia. Did their editors ever gently ask them if they've ever actually read what they've written?

Firstly, a reminder: This is not tiktok and we just say the words incest and pedophilia here.

Secondly, I don't know if I would call them 'interests' so much as fixations or even concerns. There are monstrous things that people think about, and I think writing is a place to engage with those monstrous things. It doesn't bother me that people engage with those things. I exist somewhere within the whump scale, and I would hope no one would think less of me just because sooner or later I like to rough a good character up a bit, you know? It's fun to torture characters, as a treat!

But, anyway, assuming this question isn't, "Do writers know they're gross when I think they are gross" which I'm going to take the kind road and assume it isn't, but is instead, "Do you think authors are aware of the things they constantly come back to?"

Sometimes. It can be jarring to read your own writing and realize that there are things you CLEARLY are preoccupied with. (mm, I like that word more than concerns). There are things you think about over and over, your run your mind over them and they keep working their way back in. I think this is true of most authors, when you read enough of them. Where you almost want to ask, "So...what's up with that?" or sometimes I read enough of someone's work that I have a PRETTY good idea what's up with that.

I've never read Robert Jordan and I don't intend to start (I think it would bore me this is not a moral stance) and I've really never read Rice's erotica. In erotica especially I think you have all the right in the world to get fucking weird about it! But so, when I was young I read the whole Vampire Chronicles series. I don't remember it perfectly, but there's plenty in it to reveal VERY plainly that Anne Rice has issues with God but deeply believes in God, and Anne Rice has a preoccupation with the idea of what should stay dead, and what it means to become. So, when i found out her daughter died at the age of six, before Rice wrote all of this, and she grew up very very Catholic' I said, 'yeah, that fucking checks out'.

Was Rice herself aware of how those things formed her writing? I think at a certain point probably yes. The character of Claudia is in every way too on the nose for her not to have SOME idea unless she was REAL REAL dense about her own inner workings. But, sometimes I know where something I write about comes from, that doesn't mean I'm interested in sharing it with the class. I would never ever fucking say, 'The reasons I seem to write so much of x as y is that z happened to me years ago' ahaha FUCK THAT NOISE. NYET. RIDE ON, COWBOY.

But I've known some people in fandom works who clearly have something going on and don't seem to realize it. Or they're very good at hiding it. Based on the people I'm talking about I would say it's more a lack of self-knowledge, and I don't even mean that unkindly. I have, in many ways, taken myself down to the studs and rebuilt it all, so I unfortunately am very aware of why I do and write the things I do most of the time. It's extremely annoying not to be able to blame something. I imagine it must be very freeing. But it ain't me, babe.

Anyway, a lot of words to say: Maybe! But that might not stop them from writing it, it might be a useful thing for them to engage with, and you can always just not read it.

Also, we don't censor words here.

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I have fic from now an almost-dead fandom (ATWWTTA, heyyy my friendos!) which I was writing when ya know, my parents died quite suddenly and my life got kinda.. derailed in new not-exciting ways. I managed to publish a prologue before multiple shit went down More family deaths and a total health and brain crash and well. My memory went to SHIT. So I have to go through all of the canon to re-remember facts and character voices so I can go back to writing it. I need about two days I can freely hyperfocus on reviewing my collected materials and then a couple more as I zombie through existence while finishing plotting the parallel timelines between alternate worlds (listen I made the bed of knives, now I have to lie in it). After that it probably won't take long to finish the actual writing. I don't care that maybe three people will read the fic, I will write it. But it's been four years, I expect people think I abandoned it. I didn't. You won't get rid of me that easily.

idk if this is a young fan thing or new fandom culture but some of yall think fics are abandoned way too quickly. a few months or a year or two is not unusual to go without a fic update. sometimes fics take longer to write, other times writers have rl events, or maybe there's multiple fics and one gets more priority. there are tons of reasons for fics not to be updated every week or every month. it also isn't uncommon for people to come back and update fics after a number of years—ive read updates that took five, or ten years. people's lives change, but they still want to tell their stories. personally, i never consider a fic abandoned unless the author has said so; though if it's been a few years i manage my expectations. but a last update being a year ago is... generally not a sign that a writer has abandoned their fic

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Plot armor but it’s Bruce Wayne’s wealth.

Bruce is one of the richest men in the world. Bruce does not want to be one of the richest men in world.

He starts by implementing high starting salaries and full health care coverages for all levels at Wayne Enterprises. This in vastly improves retention and worker productivity, and WE profits soar. He increases PTO, grants generous parental and family leave, funds diversity initiatives, boosts salaries again. WE is ranked “#1 worker-friendly corporation”, and productively and profits soar again.

Ok, so clearly investing his workers isn’t the profit-destroying doomed strategy his peers claim it is. Bruce is going to keep doing it obviously (his next initiative is to ensure all part-time and contractors get the same benefits and pay as full time employees), but he is going to have to find a different way to dump his money.

But you know what else is supposed to be prohibitively expensive? Green and ethical initiatives. Yes, Bruce can do that. He creates and fund a 10 year plan to covert all Wayne facilities to renewable energy. He overhauls all factories to employ the best environmentally friendly practices and technologies. He cuts contracts with all suppliers that engage in unethical employment practices and pays for other to upgrade their equipment and facilities to meet WE’s new environmental and safety requirements. He spares no expense.

Yeah, Wayne Enterprises is so successful that they spin off an entire new business arm focused on helping other companies convert to environmentally friendly and safe practices like they did in an efficient, cost effective, successful way.

Admittedly, investing in his own company was probably never going to be the best way to get rid of his wealth. He slashes his own salary to a pittance (god knows he has more money than he could possibly know what to do with already) and keeps investing the profits back into the workers, and WE keeps responding with nearly terrifying success.

So WE is a no-go, and Bruce now has numerous angry billionaires on his back because they’ve been claiming all these measures he’s implementing are too expensive to justify for decades and they’re finding it a little hard to keep the wool over everyone’s eyes when Idiot Softheart Bruice Wayne has money spilling out his ears. BUT Bruce can invest in Gotham. That’ll go well, right?

Gotham’s infrastructure is the OSHA anti-Christ and even what little is up to code is constantly getting destroyed by Rogue attacks. Surely THAT will be a money sink.

Except the only non-corrupt employer in Gotham city is….Wayne Enterprises. Or contractors or companies or businesses that somehow, in some way or other, feed back to WE. Paying wholesale for improvement to Gotham’s infrastructure somehow increases WE’s profits.

Bruce funds a full system overhaul of Gotham hospital (it’s not his fault the best administrative system software is WE—he looked), he sets up foundations and trusts for shelters, free clinics, schools, meal plans, day care, literally anything he can think of.

Gotham continues to be a shithole. Bruce Wayne continues to be richer than god against his Batman-ingrained will.

Oh, and Bruice Wayne is no longer viewed as solely a spoiled idiot nepo baby. The public responds by investing in WE and anything else he owns, and stop doing this, please.

Bruce sets up a foundation to pay the college tuition of every Gotham citizen who applies. It’s so successful that within 10 years, donations from previous recipients more than cover incoming need, and Bruce can’t even donate to his own charity.

But by this time, Bruce has children. If he can’t get rid of his wealth, he can at least distribute it, right?

Except Dick Grayson absolutely refuses to receive any of his money, won’t touch his trust fund, and in fact has never been so successful and creative with his hacking skills as he is in dumping the money BACK on Bruce. Jason died and won’t legally resurrect to take his trust fund. Tim has his own inherited wealth, refuses to inherit more, and in fact happily joins forces with Dick to hack accounts and return whatever money he tries to give them. Cass has no concept of monetary wealth and gives him panicked, overwhelmed eyes whenever he so much as implies offering more than $100 at once. Damian is showing worrying signs of following in his precious Richard’s footsteps, and Babs barely allows him to fund tech for the Clocktower. At least Steph lets him pay for her tuition and uses his credit card to buy unholy amounts of Batburger. But that is hardly a drop in the ocean of Bruce’s wealth. And she won’t even accept a trust fund of only one million.

Jason wins for best-worst child though because he currently runs a very lucrative crime empire. And although he pours the vast, vast majority of his profits back into Crime Alley, whenever he gets a little too rich for his tastes, he dumps the money on Bruce. At this point, Bruce almost wishes he was being used for money laundering because then he’s at least not have the money.

So children—generous, kindhearted, stubborn till the day they die the little shits, children—are also out.

Bruce was funding the Justice League. But then finances were leaked, and the public had an outcry over one man holding so much sway over the world’s superheroes (nevermind Bruce is one of those superheroes—but the public can’t know that). So Bruce had to do some fancy PR trickery, concede to a policy of not receiving a majority of funds from one individual, and significantly decrease his contributions because no one could match his donations.

At his wits end, Bruce hires a team of accounts to search through every crinkle and crevice of tax law to find what loopholes or shortcuts can be avoided in order to pay his damn taxes to the MAX.

The results are horrifying. According to the strictest definition of the law, the government owes him money.

Bruce burns the report, buries any evidence as deeply as he can, and organizes a foundation to lobby for FAR higher taxation of the upper class.

All this, and Wayne Enterprises is happily chugging along, churning profit, expanding into new markets, growing in the stock market, and trying to force the credit and proportionate compensation on their increasingly horrified CEO.

Bruce Wayne is one of the richest men in the world. Bruce Wayne will never not be one of the richest men in the world.

But by GOD is he trying.

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the legendary post!

“average person eats 3 spiders a year” factoid actualy just statistical error. average person eats 0 spiders per year. Spiders Georg, who lives in cave & eats over 10,000 each day, is an outlier adn should not have been counted

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Sometimes I go fight Childe just to bully him for @caparrucia.

(I fight Dvalin just to say hi, he's so pretty, game, plz let me look at him in another setting, maybe while he naps in the tower or sth. I wanna nap with Dvalin. ...Yes I am a Venti main, why?)

Forever amused that Genshin weekly bosses are so far:

Three separate dragons* (I'm counting Apep' uvula, bite me)

Cosmic space whale dubstep rave bastard

Literal wolf god

The memory of another literal actual god at her peak

Man-made god powered by a gnosis

And then:

This fucking twink.

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Do you think YQY ever loses his goddamn mind when SQQ and SQH start attributing things to their shared hometown?

Man just having a mental break while smiling serenly and clutching a tea cup like his life depends on it.

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i think people get so used to their own creative work that they forget how amazing it is so i’m making this post as a reminder You are the only person capable of making art the exact way you make it. nobody else on earth can do that. there are always going to be those little habits and intricacies and details that simply cannot be replicated whether it’s in writing or painting or textiles and you make life all the better for it i love my friends’ art i love art from strangers im trying to love my own art I LOVE YOU!!! THE PERSON READING THIS!!!!!!! YOU ARE A PART OF THIS WORLD NEVER EVER STOP MAKING THINGS THAT CAN IMPACT IT

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I did not expect to be called out like this today.

Reminder to self:

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I am Very Normal about Nanook and this is such a gorgeous art of THEM.

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Me

Apparently Caracal kittens sound like laser beams 🐈

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This is such a mood and also is giving me Ideas

this hit me like a truck