phantasm-masquerade

[phantasm-masquerade]

you do know "MRA" is a right-wing dogwhistle because cis men already have rights on the basis of their gender, right? you DO know trans men DON'T actually have rights on the basis of their gender, right? you DO know "TMRA" more closely echoes "TRA", a term used by actual, GENUINE TERFs to compare trans liberation to a right-wing misogynistic hate movement, RIGHT?

[phantasm-masquerade]

in a world where a prominent branch of anti-trans activism focuses on fearmongering about "parents' rights," trans rights and youth rights become inextricable.

trans kids deserve to be called the right pronouns and the right name by schools and doctor's offices, regardless of "parental consent." trans kids deserve to undergo the right puberty at the same time as their cis peers, regardless of "parental consent."

the very concept of "parents' rights" is a smokescreen that enables the abuse and dehumanization of children by adults. this is bad for cis kids, too.

[phantasm-masquerade]

i'm sorry to ask this so randomly, do you happen to know a nice alternative to aethy? i don't like it at all and i noticed you don't either, i just want a progressive profic pro-para anti-c fediverse instance of some kind >< i hope you're having a nice day <3

Lucky for you I happen to be the admin of such a place; xelebre.com

[phantasm-masquerade]

I'm so tired.

Link covered in grape jelly so no one feels tempted to read the post.

[phantasm-masquerade]

I'm not forgetting the dark deception nerds for removing the whole yansim paid dlc

I have no idea what those words mean.

[phantasm-masquerade]

What’s the left flag in your icon?

Gender non-conforming.

[phantasm-masquerade]

It's really only a matter of time until one of these masked plainclothes ICE agents gets shot and killed by a target or even just a random bystander. If you erode the thin veil of wool over people's eyes regarding the institution(s) of state violence, sooner or later people are going to realize that they are, at best, no different than the armed drug gangs they pretend to protect people from.

It's already fucked up that you basically have to know magic words to avoid devastating police interactions. If the magic words stop working, well,

[phantasm-masquerade]

alright. people on bluesky are getting upset that ZUN apparently AI-generated a Background for the latest Touhou game. I'm officially on the "Oh my god who cares" side of the "AI" debate

[phantasm-masquerade]

This 'drama' is especially galling because ZUN lets people use his intellectual property in FOR PROFIT PROJECTS (e.g. Luna Nights) with some limited exceptions.

No other creator with his profile (that I know of) lets people use his characters, music, and ideas wholesale and then make money off them.

In fact, this attribute of the Touhou franchise is part of what has kept it as such a juggernaut, especially in Japan with its comparatively more draconian licensing laws, but everywhere else too.

It's almost like copyright law is bad for both developers and consumers.

Anonymous asked @arionwind:

(this is an ask for vergess; since their inbox is closed right now they said to direct asks to you instead) people on reddit are so stupid about AI…apparently some of the backgrounds in the new touhou game turned out to be AI-generated and everyone is flipping their shit to reiterate: it’s not any of the art. not any of the music. it’s some fucking BACKGROUNDS. how is using a couple of AI images grabbed off the internet different from using stock images (which zun has done for past games!)

On the one hand, I'm inclined to say it would be good to, if you're using AI generated assets with no human editing (eg a background image), to credit that in your credits like, "additional backgrounds generated with this model" or whatever, so people can know where to find more Like That if they want to. So, IDK, did the Touhou team do anything like that? (Editor's note: Yes, they did)

Because, of course, unaltered AI generations are public domain in my jurisdiction and thus you don't need to pay to use them and you aren't obligated to credit them as long as you aren't doing a Fraud with them (eg, as long as you aren't saying you were the sole creator of an original work), but it's still polite to let your audience know where to go for more.

That would be my only real criticism though, and I'm. I don't. I don't have the wherewithal to deal with Touhou itself or the Touhou fandom on a good day, let alone if they're having a witch hunt. So I have no way of knowing if such a credit exists.

In terms of "how does it differ from using a stock image" I will say, it differs because a stock image is not public domain and thus must be licensed, eg used with explicit permission from the author or used under a contract. You can infringe the copyright of a stock image; you can't do that to an AI image. So, to some extent, the difference is that all AI image usage is permissible, but some stock image usage is not permissible.

And, of course, there's also the fact that most stock images used more resources (electricity, time, etc) to create than most AI images.

Like, the differences that exist are either neutral or mildly in favour of the AI.

But anyway, it's fascinating that something clearly made by human artist(s) that uses a handful of public domain assets is being denigrated for Killing Real Art And Destroying Artists' Lives.

It's always really interesting (read: miserable) when artists are being obliterated in the name of protecting artists. Happens all the time, but this latest iteration is still Very Fucking Annoying.

ETA: The good folks at @are-we-art-yet have been discussing this too, fortunately, so I am now aware that the creative team (it's a team!) was very up front about what assets were made with AI and which model was used.

It was a model with a paid license fee which itself was trained on paid licensed images, managed by the adobe photoshop company. So whatever arguments one might be tempted to make about "theft" don't apply, as the training data was all legally licensed.

Now, the law is not a replacement for ethics or morality, but if you're seeing people say the Touhou backgrounds were "stolen" no the fuck they weren't.

[phantasm-masquerade]

"teens are prone to tantrums and are emotionally unstable" - okay, yeah, puberty is real, and emotional regulation is a difficult skill to learn. but also. any adult person would be pissed if their opinions were disregarded, they had no say in what happens to them, their emotions and feelings were downplayed and their privacy were intruded on.

[phantasm-masquerade]

" if you know someone who was killed by Putin, you can place a flag here "

2022 / 2025

Ukraine

[phantasm-masquerade]

quick linguistic history lesson. the term “woke” originates from african american communities to describe being “awake and aware” of the current sociopolitical climate. this term has been used since at least the 1930s. it wasnt until 2014 during the ferguson protests that the term entered the wider vernacular. mainly as a result of black twitter. and as is common with many things coined by the black community. it was repeated and commercialized to death to the point where now most people only using it mockingly. including people on the left. the point is. “woke” is not a bad word. the alt right wants it to be one.

[phantasm-masquerade]

I miss when I would get Tumblr asks that actually said things and weren't just digital panhandling scams.

[phantasm-masquerade]

except it seemswhat you wrote "do not know why else you would say that there is no such thing as an Israeli civilian, if you do not on some level intend for them to be killed. Deeply disturbing" is zionist apologia and kind of a disgusting declaration or bad faith

You've already said that. Three times. I don't find it more convincing the third time, and I also don't know how you genuinely accuse me of arguing in bad faith after calling me a Zionist, a dog, telling me to suck your dick, and etc. You are a very small person, and I hope and pray that you can recover from your shrunken and withered soul.

[phantasm-masquerade]

Heads up, seems that mutuals of mine have been getting anon hate screaming about you being Zionists for being mutuals with me. If you get people vagueing this in your inbox, and you think it's unclear or who it's abou, it's about me. I'm the "lib Zionist" in question.

Speaking of which, this seems as good a time as any to ask that anyone on Scotland support the Thales 10 arrested. I'm up in court on the 3rd of April at Glasgow Sheriff's court for a Palestine solidarity action at the weapons factory Thales in Glasgow, and any and all support outside of the court would be appreciated.

[phantasm-masquerade]

“do not know why else you would say that there is no such thing as an Israeli civilian, if you do not on some level intend for them to be killed. Deeply disturbing.” Oh shut the fuck up you dumb bitch. its as real as being north irelander. its as real as being a sealander citizen. make believe. they’re not real because their nationality is make belive you willingly ignorant dumb sombitch.

Like every other nationality.

[phantasm-masquerade]

why am i just finding out now you believe in anti-palestinian & racist israeli nationalism? grossly disappointing.

When will people on this website learn not to believe ridiculous call-outs?

For those of you who wonder what this is about, one of the professional anti-Zionist posters on here put a series of statements of mine completely out of context when she went trawling through my blog to discredit me because she saw a post of mine (that explicitly called for the dissolution of the state of Israel, for whatever that's worth) that talked about Left-wing anti-Semitism, which pissed her off enough (she is, of course, not an anti-Semite! She'd never! It's just that opposition to it pisses her off so badly that she spends like an hour making a misrepresentation and contextless call-out)

I have been very clear that I believe in the abolition of Israel, that Zionism is a form of settler colonialism, that Palestinians are the victims of a genocide the desperately need stopping by any available means. It's just that I am less gung-ho about Palestinian ethnic nationalism than is the rest of this website, and that I don't think that anti-Semitism is acceptable as long as it's anti-Zionist, as opposed to most 'Leftists' apparently, so a few people have decided that I am a Zionist enemy.

Your sort make the Left fucking intolerable.