#but developing ai to make art in this way is saddening

[gobhoblingreg]

Another thing that concerns me about this is the fact that somebody could repost your art from one site, like tumblr, onto X/Twitter. Even without the artist themselves being on X/Twitter, their art or intellectual property would likely still be used because this amendment to their services doesn’t specify that you have to be the original creator in order for them to take and use your work. It basically implies that anything and everything that gets posted there can be used for these purposes regardless of the user who posts the content. So while leaving the platform might lessen the chances of your work getting used for these purposes, it only takes one person reposting to become victim to them anyways.

I can also imagine that if other social media platforms aren’t already doing this to some extent, they will likely follow suit in the near future.

In case any of you here also use X/Twitter.

[poolpartymusic]

wait i wanna say more!

Okay, I went to the toilet and decided there is more to say:

WHAT DO I WANNA DO WITH MY LIFE?

Maybe caps is a little dramatic, because I am relatively chill about it. My most concerns are with my student debt, but even that is something I'm sure will work out eventually.

"Artificial Intelligence has genuinely interested me, but building smart vacuum cleaners does not sound right to me. Meanwhile, whenever I read someone is interested in film making, I get jealous for their bravery.  But then, the proud that is burning inside of me tells me to go to WO University, to study something useful and secure. I always said I’d rather study something fun than something that would get paid well. I’m aware of what I want to do, but I am insecure. There is no experience in the film industry for me, except for all the years of writing. And then what? Script writing, is that what would make me happy? No, I’d want full control. I’d want to study Film Directing, but we all know I won’t get hired for that. That last statement is something I believe. Even if it is a logical statement, as the only people getting in are about 24 years old and have made shorts, I still miss the key characteristic for making it in the film world. Confidence. I tell myself I’d be willing to work hard, yet mean while I’ve been disappointing myself by surfing through fucking Habbo Hotel in my free time. I’m stuck."

I remember feeling at home at the thought of studying AI at Tilburg University. It was something I did find interesting, but I never realized I didn't even see a future in that work field for myself. At the same time I felt super cheekily excited about filmmaking: It scared me. It saddens me to read that I didn't believe I could ever really become a film director. I went into the film studies so insecure...

And then after two years I switched to Illustration. I do think it was a very good call. If I would've gone through wat film, I wouldn't have learned as much as I have now. Still, I don't want to become an illustrator.

These past months up to maybe two years, I've been telling people I aspire to make short animation films and documentaries, while also making little poetry books with illustrations. And while that is definitely true, I of course am also following an ICT minor right now.

And I realize that pedagogy or psychology is also something I'm interested in. I don't feel like I must make a choice between everything, but I do wanna broaden my horizon and put myself to work.

Therefor, I have two options. Firstly, I can learn more about coding and coding in art. I could make a project where I try to make a game. Secondly, I can spend time learning about child development, psychology and pedagogy. This because I'm considering doing 1.5-2 years of pedagogy work after my studies, just to earn money and try something new.

I think for now, and really I'm just brainstorming along while I'm writing this, I'll just need to make a decision. None is wrong, I can always change.

I do miss writing. I do wanna draw more- And if I decide to do pedagogy after my studies, I'll have to attend classes either way. So maybe let's focus on game making.

Okay. Now, I'll stop ranting here and I'll make a Notion page on which I outline how I want this project to take form.

I'll maybe keep you up to date, though this blog was mainly to talk about more personal struggles. We'll see.

[chromegnomes]

AI Art, or:

how I learned to start worrying and loathe the bot

As a writer and artist who initially saw promise in the technology, the current state of AI art (both visual and written) saddens and scares me.

My introduction to AI art wasn't the jeering tech grifters who champion it today. In early 2021 I followed AI Curio, a disabled nonbinary artist who was coding their own AI image generator to allow themself a form of artistic expression after losing the ability to draw. Their program, ZOEtrope, was a lovably janky and difficult-to-use Google Colab form--a far cry from the sleek interfaces of Dall-E and Midjourney.

The work that AI Curio produced with ZOEtrope was fascinating to me: barren hellscapes, impossible monsters, uncanny haloed human forms paired with handwritten lore. All of this was done for the love of art, with a strict anti-exploitation (and anti-crypto) code of ethics.

Sketches of the Next World

In March 2020, recently laid off due to the pandemic, I released Sketches of the Next World, a chapbook of erasure poetry about faith, doubt, and death, blacked out from the pages of Near Death Experience books. Sketches is held together by ten numbered "Sketch" poems which paint surreal and upsetting afterlife scenes, and I hope to eventually release a full-length version in which the Sketch poems are accompanied by actual sketches. So when I first encountered ZOEtrope, I thought I'd found the perfect medium: what better to pair with off-putting blackout poetry about heaven than sterile, off-putting AI heavenscapes?

Critics of AI art point out that the AI is not capable of generating anything consciously, but can only regurgitate what it thinks you want from a statistical average of existing art that it's been "trained" on. For me, this was the point! I saw, and still see, fascinating artistic potential in the conversation between human and machine, and the alienating strangeness of religious art produced by a robot with no concept of God or the soul.

This is, of course, not the primary or intended use case of AI image generation.  The actions and intentions of the software's most prominent developers and cheerleaders have killed my hope for the medium's artistic potential.

Very few of its users are interested in creating capital-A Art that interrogates the medium itself; most tutorials and demonstrations of its power highlight its ability to mimic the glossy look of professional illustration to save time and money. But to this day, when I see someone say "AI art isn't art," my knee-jerk reaction is that they're half-wrong; an AI can't make "art," but a human operator could make art with it, if they wanted to. It just takes more effort and intention than typing "beautiful landscape busty woman by [artist name] trending on artstation." 

I am not optimistic that AI Art will ever move past this point, however, especially as the increasingly loud and hostile attitude of its advocates chases off anyone who might be interested in using it from a place of artistic curiosity rather than a race to the bottom of “passive income” grifts.

“Good Enough” Machine Slop

When AI art started to break into the mainstream a bit more, at least on twitter, I thought that my fellow artists' fears of being replaced were overblown, and said as much. I'd been playing with ZOEtrope for a good while by then, and I knew it was FAR from easy to get good results out of it, and even then, the "good" results were always muddy and impressionistic, not up to the standards of professional illustration. Early DALL-E output didn't dissuade me from this stance; the startup bros who bragged that it would replace human artists were fully incapable of seeing the flaws in its output. I went out of my way to point out the jarring inconsistencies in DALL-E "art" wherever they popped up, and they were surprised every time. DALL-E Mini, apparently unrelated, only made me feel more vindicated in this by outputting 9 murky images that roughly approximated the input prompt, rather than one even passable piece.

Based on the shortcomings of the existing software, I predicted that AI art would blow over quickly as people realized that, without human intentionality, the programs would never be aware enough of what they're drawing to produce quality work. I predicted that we may be in for a few months to a year of companies pushing "good enough" AI art products before AI generation became, to consumers, a mark of corner-cutting and poor quality.

I'm still not certain I was wrong about that. Even as AI art becomes more saturated than I expected, the most advanced programs remain incapable of drawing hands, and their results become incomprehensible when asked to draw more than a simple landscape or portrait. But I underestimated three things:

The speed with which programs like DALL-E and Midjourney would become very easy to use for quick generation of passable (at a glance) outputs;

How mainstream and inescapable AI art and the surrounding discourse would become;

How demoralizing it would be to live through that predicted period of corporate devaluation of artists' labor.

Now, artists, if this next section angers you, please stick with me. I promise there's a BUT coming.

The Fetishization of “Effort”

Part of what has made this discourse so demoralizing is the vitriol and line-drawing that, backed into a corner with their livelihoods on the line, my fellow artists have been driven to. AI Curio, whom I consider one of the few "ethical" AI artists, has been chased off twitter by a constant stream of death threats, gory DMs, and doxxing, in what I can only see as a classic case of Trashed Bathrooms.

Beyond that (possibly isolated) instance, I keep seeing artists I respect reinventing definitions of "art" barely removed from far-right "degenerate art" talking points, or spinning up definitions of "art theft" adjacent to those of DMCA vultures or teens on deviantart complaining about "color palette theft." I’ve already seen plenty of takes that define art by the effort and skill required to produce it, going so far as to say that photography is not an art, rolling back decades of modern and postmodern art theory to make a desperate point.

I understand why. This is murky territory. The tech startups creating these programs are running roughshod over what was previously a kind of honor-system digital commons, with art shared freely under the assumption of good faith. Now, any art posted online is under threat of being taken to train a program to emulate your style for use by faceless suits who would like to use your art without compensation. Being taken advantage of in this way shatters trust. In the absence of preexisting progressive talking points against this kind of betrayal, people fall back on traditionalist ideas of art as "expressive of the human soul" or maximalist concepts of "intellectual property" that would make a Disney lawyer blush.

I don't want to make art in the world implied by these arguments. I love the public domain, I love the creative commons, I love the spirit of sharing that has previously flourished in so many artistic communities. If I could keep myself housed and fed in the process, I would give away every story and game I ever produce for free. And I don't think there's any way to define "theft" such that it includes "my drawing of an apple was part of a dataset used to train an AI to understand the concept of An Apple" without drawing hard fences around intellectual property in a way that benefits wealthy copyright abusers more than any living artist.

BUT.

I'm just not convinced that the way these programs use their data is meaningfully different from illicit tracing or uncredited photobashing.

Write Me a Story Like “The Call of Cthulhu”

In my opening paragraph, I mentioned that I had concerns not just about AI-generated images, but AI-generated writing as well. In addition to ZOEtrope, I've spent a decent amount of time playing with OpenAI's GPT-3 Playground. Initially, I just wanted in on the fad of making it write bespoke "greentexts" about silly topics, but eventually I started feeding it scraps of my poetry and unfinished novels.

The latter results were concerning. Its prose was both largely unrelated to my prompts and also a little TOO coherent, in a way that made me suspect it must be regurgitating large sections of existing works. To test this further, knowing that the full text of this story existed on the web and could easily be part of the AI's training data, I fed it the first few sentences of HP Lovecraft's "The Call of Cthulhu."

In response, it gave me the first paragraph of The Call of Cthulhu. Every time. No matter how I tweaked the output settings, it spat entire paragraphs of the story back out, and then refused to innovate. It either hit a dead end or gave me more Lovecraft, verbatim, a word or two changed at most. Disheartened, I looked up some of the funniest phrases from greentexts and tweets the bot had written me, and found that they were frequently also taken verbatim from other places on the web.

I stopped playing with GPT-3 after that. I'd hoped to use it for the same purpose as AI-generated visual art, a curated conversation between human and machine, and now I couldn't trust that anything it "created" would be mine to use. I feared that the same problem may arise with visual AI art as well, and tentatively stopped using it.

“Everyone Copies”

Proponents of AI art love to claim that it doesn’t steal art, because it doesn’t “store” the images it’s trained on. What does this mean, really? The machine analyzes images to “learn” what certain objects look like, and then recreates something like that when prompted, but what data is kept in this “knowledge”? Even a JPG is ultimately just a set of code that tells a computer how to assemble an image. Given how closely many AI images resemble specific existing artworks and photographs, there is clearly data retained which is referenced when the AI creates its version. Even in my own experiments, which I consciously limited to public domain training data, I saw bits and pieces of classic paintings.

At this point, defenders will claim that “all art is inspired by and references other art.” This comparison is fundamentally in bad faith. Machine learning algorithms are not “inspired” in the same way a human artist is, and saying as much requires anthropomorphizing a bundle of code that was produced by a human programmer with the purpose of analyzing and recreating artwork, with no will of its own. The process may be infinitely more complex than copying and pasting, but in both cases, an image is broken down into code and then reconstructed with no human intentionality involved.

Even if that anthropomorphism is granted, humans are fully capable of plagiarism that goes beyond “inspiration.” Human artists, driven by envy, laziness, or tight deadlines, often trace others’ artwork, and are only caught when telltale signs of the original remain in the new work, the same as AI. “Everyone copies” does not end the conversation--the degree and manner of copying are all-important.

I am not a machine learning expert. Right now, I have seen enough AI-generated text and artwork which retains recognizable chunks of its source material to know that these programs absolutely do plagiarize. It may be possible that, in the future, they will become advanced enough to “understand” the objects they draw more independently of their source images.

Even in this hypothetical future, I have come to believe that this technology has more bad applications than good.

Maximally Efficient  C O N T E N T  Production

The Ammaar Reshi thread, which I linked earlier, is emblematic of a massive problem: the ease with which AI art algorithms generate okay-ish work leads to a frenzied drive to create glitzy pictures that serve no purpose other than hopefully snaring a buyer. Portfolio websites are currently completely overloaded with AI generated “artwork,” with hundreds of people creating thousands of images with the hope of impressing, well, whom exactly? The current gold rush feels similar to the NFT bubble, with “passive income” enthusiasts thrilled at the prospect of automatic content generation without a pause to ask what market may actually exist for automated content. The only plausible buyer of a book written by an AI is a mark who doesn’t realize what they’ve purchased. 

The other obvious use case for this technology is, of course, cutting human artists out of the grunt work which currently provides the bulk of their pay. I had thought that the poor quality of most AI artwork might prevent this outcome, which was why I believed that fear over lost jobs was overblown; however, this has apparently not stopped publishers like Tor from using AI artwork on the covers for some of their biggest authors, even when said artwork has massive flaws which require human correction.

In a better world, this might be exciting, freeing artists to work on their own projects rather than working for hire. The fact that we live in a world where any industry becoming automated is a threat rather than a relief is one of the great tragedies of the last few centuries. I, personally, have pursued freelance work because I need to make art, but the present economy makes finding the time to pursue my craft impossible unless I am paid for it. 

I do not expect non-artists to care about this. Most people are indifferent, a few recognize the danger but see it as inevitable, and a very vocal minority is giddy at the thought of artists being “put in their place” for daring to expect compensation for their labor. I do not believe that human artists being replaced by AI is inevitable, but I do not expect it to be stopped by goodwill toward artists.

Conclusion

My only hope is the fact that, from what I can see, normal people DO see businesses using AI art as lazy corner-cutting. Consumer demand for pretty pictures may drive the AI art boom, but consumers of all kinds are generally hypercritical of anything that smacks of laziness, justified or otherwise. Outside of art twitter and Midjourney hype threads, most people seem to regard claims to have “created” art using AI prompts as tantamount to lying.

So I hope that the AI Content Ouroboros will fully swallow its own tail before it irreparably damages the art industry. In the meantime, I would like to never have to hear about it again, but the algorithms of every website I use are intent on forcing it upon me--more reason to hate algorithms.

[georgie-ssnh]

Okay so I do not want to bring any heated debate out there, I'm just an artist AND a former IT student (and still somewhat of an IT enthusiast) But I'm saddened. Because I love art and (as controversal as it seems) I love....AI. Yes, indeed, I do love this weird technology because I know how it works (roughly) and I know its full potential, were it to be used right. Thing is... What happens in the AI Art trend of Twitter is the entire opposite of "AI done right"; there are so many people that think they are getting to be good artists because they're doing the most basic input and have procedurally generated illustrations as outputs. And don't get me wrong, a bad artist is still an artist regardless. Here's how I see it through this one example: I debated with a great friend about wether or not R**i K**r was still an artist and, to my opinion, she still was. Because there was a fine grain of personal input in that self-righteousness and plagiarism puddle that was one of her books, and this one aspect is all that mattered to me.

Artists are a thing, non-artists are also a thing, but to me "bad artist" =/= "non-artist"; and AI "artists" were below Art to me because all they do is ideating art, not making it. I cannot make a precise and finite definition of Art but I sure can tell what an artist is, all artists use their head and their hands (AND YES this is quite similar to the definition of a crafter but I see nothing wrong with it, in French it's not called "Artisan" for nothing); and thus, when you do art, you have ideas and use your head and your members to have it done... So this is where AI abusers are far from it, they have the ideas but renounce developping them in their minds nor DOING them through their own research(just to remind you that researching references is entirely ok) and crafting skills. Which is a damn shame... Both as an artist ....and an AI user. You heard me bloody right. As I told you all, I know a bit of stuff about how AI is made and what are its purposes and a great teacher once told me "You don't even need that much dev skill to be a good AI dev, you just need solid knowledge in the non-IT field you'ld deploy your AI towards". That guy knew what's up because if you're an actual artist, you do know that trendy AI Art is.... bad, like actually bad, flawed as shit, stupid proportions, poses and hands that make NO SENSE, and they're only getting twitter fame because first impression is the only thing they're good at and is the only thing needed to impress the Blue Bird crowd. But beyond that ? Garbage . Could it be improved to make honest-to-god illustrations ? Totally, BUT.... Only real illustrator artists would have the wits and experience to figure out what to improve, because they know, because they practiced, etc... Anybody else would hardly have the expertise to figure out what to improve in details and this is why, my folks, AI is only good when it is assisting the main actors of its targeted field, and not in a way to impersonate said actors. All of these mistakes are due to the fact that Market/Tech nerds are hoping way too hard to become the bosses of each and every field they're giving the technology to; which is human since, when you're deep into a certain craft, you really want that field of yours to get the maximum amount of recognition and even illustration/animation artists are all about this very desire... But when you're the actual most recognized and profitable field under capitalism... capitalism will be very interested in you being the ONE field that is profitable. To uniformize is to simplify; To simplify is to optimize; To optimize is to profit; To profit is the essence of capitalism.

So in all and all, it's always about wanting to own art without being an artist; and, with all of what I said here, you are starting to realize that them being called "non-artists" isn't even a gatekeeping insult, because if they feel like they "owned" Art, they'll just be entirely proud to say that Tech was enough to surpass Art and that Art is, therefore, inherently something simple/low enough for not bothering about artists and giving them any credit/value. Cynical, amarite ? So am I, because deep down I knew that AI could be beneficial to art... only on paper (pun half intended). There could be better assisting tools in digital painting softwares, "intelligent" rendering, "intuitive" compositions, and whatnot feature a machine could do to help in seasoned artists in their decision makings. But I do not believe anymore such a day would come because as the big beared german guy said, it's all about who OWNS the means of production and as I demonstrated earlier, we already know the "easier way" towards profitable situations that is not the way led by artists. ...Wait why did I write all of this ? "End capitalism plz" was enough of a revelant statement, wtf me

[usagichronicles]

What some of your best memories in the RPC?

Hmm... I’ll put this under a read more, since I’m in a self reflective and stream of consciousness mood. So this will be entirely unedited, and way too long.

I think some of the early happiness was the reception I got when I first started, about four years and ten months ago. People were excited to RP with me, glad I had decided to finally get involved.

At first I intended only for Cafe, and I put in a ton of work to get her set up. But by the end of my time writing KanColle, I had a lot of shipgirl OCs, and I mean a lot -- Trench Cafe, Spirit of Fire, Ohio, Atlantic Conveyor, Pilar, Houston, Langley, Gangut, Manila, New Zealand, Georgios Averof, Neptune, Leander, Achilles, Kiwi, Tui, Moa, Lanikai, Kirkwall, Jewel of Windsor, Emma Williams, Aotearoa, Helle.

A lot of the best early memories come from Cafe and her storyline. And I must admit, out of the above 24 characters? Cafe, Spirit of Fire, Manila, Kirkwall, Emma Williams, New Zealand, and Aotearoa got a lot of development. But satisfaction in how their characters developed? Only in Cafe, Emma Williams, and Aotearoa.

Cafe and Manila were the only characters who got endings. They were both happy endings. But only Cafe got one I am happy with. 

That being said... I really enjoyed writing HMS New Zealand. I think she was one of my first ‘complex’ personalities, with a storyline that I really tried to plan a bit. It didn’t work amazingly, there was a lot that got derailed, but I enjoyed her.

Aotearoa is a happy story of missed chances. Her personality wasn’t quite so complex, but I thought enough of her, I converted her into a different format and wrote a CYOA novella, rewriting an RP arc that didn’t go the way I wanted it.

There is one other... But I’ll bring that up later.

Moving on from KanColle...

I did a lot of faffing about with Strike Witches. I had four characters. Adeline Kain, Rebecca Moore, Tui Gray, and Helen Clapham. One of those names might be familiar. This... is where Helen Clapham originated. Strike Witches being Strike Witches, there was no active RPC for the setting, and I don’t blame anyone for that. I convinced three others to write it, among them Kako, and we did a brief thing together. 

I stuck with it longer than the rest; I still had my SW characters kicking about by the time I shut down the old blog, and elected not to bring them to this one.

Rebecca Moore was a favourite of mine in that time. It helped, however, that I wrote her with Kako. She had a more sophisticated story than the rest, and on top of that, she had a storyline. She showed up before, she helped Kako’s character, she helped another person’s character who affected Kako’s character -- and though her story ended before I really wanted it to, in a way she also got a happy ending. Still fighting the war, even after she was ordered to go home, helped by Keiko. Pulling her weight.

I’ll skip my attempts at Halo. They had some fun times, but not enough to really bring up. My attempt at Girls Frontline was stillborn. 

Strike Witches is where Helen Clapham got her start (originally with UMP40 as her FC). The Agency version of her started off as an AU, of Helen Clapham, the ex-witch bomber pilot. An AU where she never became a bomber pilot, and fell into another world. Three years later, Helen Clapham the bomber pilot no longer exists.

Agent Helen does, and she’s been a bundle of happy memories. I’m genuinely proud of how she’s developed over time. She’s the muse I’ve stuck with the most, the one who’s seen the most, who’s had the longest storyline. One that sees little sign of ending. Through thick and thin, she’s brought me to tears, she’s brought me to hugging my pillow and giggling to myself. Always with the satisfaction and cheer of writing a character I really, really enjoy. Those tears were not of frustration, and though they were shed in reaction to parts of her storyline that sadden me, they aren’t tears shed because I don’t like it. So I think she’s a big one there.

Victoria Collet deserves a spot here, but she should really be above with KanColle. She got her start back then, after all. She’s ‘Jewel of Windsor’ in the list. She is the only character from the KanColle blog, who survived the transition to other areas of writing. I think she was one of the characters I absolutely loved writing, even back then. Her origin story comes from H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds, which is a semi-annual obsession of mine. Though that origin no longer exists, her current form is quite lovely. I always have a goofy smile on my face when I think of her, and her travels with Maria and Kazuko. She’s just a good bisexual girl who’s massively confused by her friends, a lesbian who commonly crossdresses as a man, and a boy who lives as a girl. 

Fubuki has been a story of indulging myself in a guilty pleasure, and genuinely enjoying writing her own stories. A kitsune, a samurai kitsune, an Oda samurai kitsune, a shrine maiden samurai kitsune, it’s indulging in a lot of stuff I like but hadn’t wanted to write before her, due to some embarrassment over the subjects. But encouragement from friends, particularly Kako, saw Fubuki come to be -- and I’ve enjoyed much of her.

Tikva got off to a rocky start. I originally conceived of her as a way to keep writing Cafe, during a moment of weakness where I was lamenting how some things had gone. She was going to be a carbon copy, Cafe’s AI turned human. But the RP partner I was going to write that with stopped writing, and honestly, in Tikva’s case it was likely for the best. 

Tikva’s story is far different to what the original thing was going to be. Who Tikva is now, is very different from who Cafe was, and she’s far better off for it. I am extremely grateful to Kako for helping me with everything with Tikva.

Okoori was my first foray into Touhou RP, and Kako helped immensely in her creation as well. She’s a bit of another self-indulgence. A woman who lives to make people happy, someone who wears elegant cloting, a bit of exposed skin, a youkai concept (yuki-onna) I really like. Writing her helped me get confident enough to adopt Aya as a canon muse, and have Fubuki chase a demon into a magical land.

Grani. Grani Grani Grani. I will be the first to admit, I’ve latched on to her very, very hard. I’ve made tons of headcanons, spend tons of time thinking about her, discussing her, looking at art of her. Thinking of her makes me smile, and writing her doesn’t often cause me to pause and have to think. I can fall into her mindset rather easily. 

Some people say I’m a lot like Grani myself; I’m short, excitable and generally cheerful, I have a strong sense of justice and desire to help others. My only worry sometimes is that my own sense of self might bleed into Grani, but all of what we write has something of ourselves in them. I try not to worry too much. 

There’s far more I could say. 

I could go through each and every single one of my current muses, and I could likely find something good to say about them -- even Chloe, who I haven’t written in a long time. I am very, very happy with my characters. 

Roleplaying is my main hobby, and has been for more than two years now. It’s a passion that I don’t want to lose anytime soon. I put a lot of effort into it, because I love writing with everyone, and I love it when a thread goes well.

So I guess I can say that, many of my recent RPC memories have been happy memories.

It’s likely best if I end it there, rather than continuing. After all, this reply is up to 1,400+ words.

[blueskydreama]

Uncharted is my favorite action adventure video game franchise of all time. I tried my absolute best to be as unbiased as possible when writing this review, but I have to admit that I did fall into the trap more than once. Coming from the talented developers at Naughty Dog, creators of the smash hit The Last of Us, Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End wraps up the story of Nathan Drake and his comrades in this last, massive and explosive adventure. The PS4 has long been aching for an exclusive killer app, and Naughty Dog has done everything in their power to make sure UC4 fits the bill. It does. Oh, sweet mother of God, it does.

 WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD FOR UNCHARTED 4

Uncharted 4 picks up the story several years after the events of Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception. Having retired from the life of a treasure hunting rogue, Drake has made a relatively normal life for himself, making a living as a salvager of cargo from underwater wrecks. However, his new life is quickly disrupted with the reappearance of his long-presumed dead brother Sam. Sam is in trouble. A Panamanian drug lord by the name of Hector Alcázar has demanded that Sam find the lost treasure of pirate Henry Avery in 3 months or he will be killed. Not an easy task, especially considering he and his brother tried once before 15 years ago and failed. Drake reluctantly accepts his brother’s pleas for help, and sets off an explosive chain of events that culminates in one of the best twists I have experienced in a long time.

Uncharted 4 will take players across the globe in a journey that puts some of the most epic adventures to shame. Players will visit Italy and pull off a high stakes heist at a black market auction, Scotland, visit Madagascar and explore the plateau, and the fabled pirate paradise of Libertalia. The story is larger than ever before, with betrayal, emotion and intensity the likes of which the previous games could only dream of. The pacing of the plot is near perfection, with an excellent balance of chaos, thrill and quiet moments, although the introduction sequence could have been better paced. However, after the (simply spectacular) opening credit scene, the pacing is far smoother, and really begins to feel like a summer blockbuster.

The voice acting is the greatest it’s ever been. Troy Baker is absolutely phenomenal as Drake’s brother, and Nolan North is at his finest portraying a worn out, tired Drake, while Emily Rose (Elena) and Richard McGonagle (Sully) also put on top acts. You truly feel that these actors have become their characters, and feel the emotional weight behind their performances.

The ending is controversial, I won’t deny that, and while it irked many people, I personally believe that it could not have been better handled. There is simply no better way to send off Naughty Dog’s flagship franchise.

Being an adventure game, it goes without saying that the locations will be exotic – and absolutely gorgeous. Naughty Dog has forced the absolute maximum potential of the PS4 for this game. The environments are huge and richly detailed, with lush foliage that bends and moves with the characters, and glistens and drips in the rain. Puddles splash when the player moves in them, and water refracts light. The animation is top notch, with characters having unique combat poses and idle stances. The level of detail and polish present in this game is beyond anything I have seen before, even on current generation games. While I can’t say anything for the authenticity in the locations, considering that Naughty Dog modelled Kathmandu in Uncharted 2 true to life, I can say it’s a safe bet they did the same here, although obvious liberties had to be taken for gameplay purposes.

Characters react realistically to the environment. When brawling in muddy locations, character react accordingly, flinging mud and becoming covered the gunk. They drip water and their clothing becomes heavy and darker colored when soaked. Skin shines and trails water, and hair becomes matted. I constantly found myself slack-jawed at the lengths the developers went for this game.

Graphics aside, the sound is unmatched. Gunfire is thunderous and jolting, and the environmental SFX are astounding. When in the jungle, you believe you are there, with howler monkeys screeching and birds calling. The wilds of Madagascar are populated with cicadas and typical wildlife. The hurricane in the opening level is terrifying. The music is astounding, with sweeping orchestral pieces during action and peaceful melodies that play during the more intimate moments.

The production values are through the roof. The game truly feels as if you are playing a summer blockbuster movie, and the near complete lack of bugs and glitches is the icing on the cake.

Not too much has changed since Drake’s Deception hit shelves in November of 2011. The gunplay is just as refined as ever, and feels smooth and very fluid, especially with the new lock on mechanic – although that can make getting headshots somewhat difficult; however, it can be disabled at any time. Many of the old weapons return, with some new additions such as the Aegis 9mm pistol and the HS39 assault rifle. Along with the new weapons comes the marking system, which allows players to tag enemies to follow their movements and plan routes of attack. In addition to this, players are given the option to completely avoid combat, a first for the series.

Another new entry to the series is the grappling hook and rope, which further enhances traversal and environmental interactivity. Drake can use it to cross otherwise impassable gaps, scale walls and even instantly KO enemies with a lethal dropdown attack. The rope enhances vertical gameplay to entire new levels, and truly feels like a useful tool. That aside, the rope can also be tethered to stationary objects and used as a pulley, or even attached to breakable things and used to create new pathways.

Hand to hand combat has been slightly upgraded as well, with new takedowns utilizing your partners and new combat moves, but otherwise stays the same. Environmental takedowns are still as flashy as ever and even seems to take queues from The Last of Us for some of them.

Stealth plays a much bigger role in this entry than previous games. As mentioned before, some combat sections can be completely avoided if you are stealthy enough. Sneaking up behind enemies and silently killing them is a lot more fun than it should be, but the terrified look on their buddy’s face when they discover the body is priceless. Enemy AI is intelligent and challenging. If they find you, they will continue searching the area even after you disappear. They flank you and use cooperative tactics to try and defeat you. It is a much welcome change from the brain dead AI of most shooters. The same goes for your partner AI as well – they actually kill enemies and do a spectacular job of aiding the player.

Treasures return, of course, only now there are 109 to find, and they are very cleverly hidden, which gives an excuse to meander around large wide open areas. Alongside these treasures are notes and journal pages to be found that flesh out the lore a bit more. By pressing the OPTIONS button, you can view these collectibles. Beating the game unlocks new bonuses such as skins and tweaks to make your next playthrough that much more fun and interesting.

 Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune blew me away the first time I played it in 2008 on my uncle’s PS3. I felt like a true adventurer, off to solve the mysteries of the ancient world. A modern day Indiana Jones – stop the bad guys, get the treasure and get the girl. I walked away dumbstruck. The game was hard, yes, but the presentation and quality spoke to me on a deeper level. That gaming could be a hobby, but could also be a way for talented individuals to tell a story, to create ART, and that’s what Naughty Dog did, way back in 2007.

Nearly ten years have passed since then. Uncharted has become synonymous with high production values, venerated storytelling, exceptional character growth, and the PlayStation name itself. Naughty Dog’s flagship series permanently landed them in the spotlight of AAA game development, and they have continued to prove that they earned their spot, garnering universal praise and hundreds of awards since then.

Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End is the culmination of all of that hard work and dedication, passion and love. I cannot recommend this game enough. Tears have been shed, blood has been spilt and stories have been told. It saddens me to see Drake’s story end, but I would have it done no other way.

 Uncharted 4 is a true masterpiece of modern storytelling. This is for all the Dogs out there. 

[zeroar]

Small AI thoughts

As someone who uses Photoshop to draw, paint, and edit, I'm already using AI when I use their filters and computer tools.

I don't see a problem with humans using technology as part of their workflow.

There are ethical issues with how the AI is trained and how it is used. As someone who just got back into writing fiction, I am extremely saddened by Clarkesworld having to close submissions due to AI-generated spam, though getting accepted at Clarkesworld for my stories is more of a dream than a waking-world goal anyway. Primarily because of their response time, they were always the first publication I would submit to back when I was writing full-time. Now they not only still have an amazing response time, but their pay rate is substantially higher than most fiction magazines so I was a little excited to submit my first story in over a decade. I'm sure that's why they were targeted.

But if people were generating stories and doing quality checks and edits on things and using AI to elevate their own writing and art, I think it wouldn't have been as big of a problem. I've resisted ChatGPT because writing is something that is very accessible for me. I don't need the help.

Since I found out my worsening hand tremors were caused by my medication and not natural progression of the issues I've always had, I haven't used Stable Diffusion's image generator much; but even now that I don't need them, I'm not opposed to someone using them in their workflow. If I had a faster GPU or had kept up with the advances, I'd still be using them and I plan to use them again in the future.

Especially the inpainting and remixing features of Stable Diffusion where you upload your own work and tweak it. I think it's something that should be taught in every art school.

Creating "out of whole cloth" means lying. Capital-C Creation is not what we do when we create art. Nothing is truly new, just iterated and adjusted and maybe you didn't see the journey from point A to point B.

And also, a lot of toxicity and anti-art sentiments have developed over the last century by equating art with magickal Creation abilities.

How many kids are told they have to draw from their imagination and not use reference photos? That's absurd. Some people do not even have an internal image in their heads (aphantasia). We're going to deny them the human experience of art by not allowing reference photos to be used?

The biggest problem with all these in our world is capitalism. People are spamming Clarkesworld because the time-investment of developing a story was shortened to the point that it was affordable to try it as a source of income. Artists already struggle to get paid a fair wage (or get paid at all) and now companies can have someone produce work for even less. Even if the person making it is equally skilled as the artist, they'll be able to do it so much faster that paying them the same means paying them less.

There are other major ethical issues like how good the fake images of real people doing anything and everything wearing anything or nothing are getting, but artists could already do that with enough time. That's not a new problem, it's simply something that's easier to do now. I confess one of the reasons I forced myself to step away from AI art was that I was becoming obsessed with creating an embedding to make "new" photos of my dead love (thanks 2020). There should be photos of her in a wedding dress, growing old; being happy in every stage of life. If I had enough audio of her to train a voice simulator, I'm not sure I'd have been able to stop myself. Though if I had enough audio of her to do that, I probably wouldn't be as desperate to hear her voice again.

Anyway, that sounded more like a bad sci-fi story—the sort that wouldn't be accepted by Clarkesworld even if written by a human—so I tore myself away from that project ... for now.

These are my shortened thoughts (I had written a very, very long article in January on this, but lost my way in the writing; was reminded again today with another company declaring they won't use AI. Does that mean no Photoshop? No Grammarly? No Windows? No Android? No Siri? No, it means not something that markets itself as AI. Very arbitrary lines in sand, hence the above).

Thanks for reading! 〜Zero

[kalymna]

a tiny princess’ big list of favorite games

It’s been about three years since I sat down and considered my top 10 favorite games, and I was curious to see how my tastes had changed. I love making lists, and this was really  fun! I ended up writing a whole fuckload of words about them so I’ll put them beneath a read more; feel free to read over them if you like!

Doom II is, for my money, the greatest videogame ever made. No other game has captured the purity of gameplay and design that was managed back in 1994; it’s nearly perfect in every way. Monster and weapon design encourage you to be moving constantly, never hiding behind cover but weaving between attacks. Every monster is threatening in its own way -- the deadliest enemy is the shotgun guy, one of the earliest and weakest you’ll see. Every weapon has its use in various situations (except the pistol, unfortunately). The level design was, by and large, better than the previous game, but even if you don’t like those levels, the game is infinitely moddable and tens of thousands of maps have been released over the last twenty-four years. I’ve sunk thousands and thousands of hours into the game and it absolutely never gets old. Doom II is perfection.

Chrono Trigger is a game that needs no introduction or explanation; anyone who has played JRPGs has assuredly played Chrono Trigger, and it’s much-lauded for very good reason. The characters are varied and interesting, the battle mechanics utilizing combos and positioning are compelling and encourage you to swap around characters in your party to find out what all the double and triple techs are. The plot is a masterful swerve from ‘extremely standard’ to ‘what the fuck is happening’, the prime antagonists extremely memorable (Magus, Queen Zeal, and Lavos are all much more complex than they seem at first glance, and the game fleshes them all out phenomenally), and the soundtrack puts pretty much every other one to shame. The game goes from comedy to pathos with ease, and it’s exactly long enough to finish right when it’s about to wear out its welcome. It’s a real, real good game, y’all.

Nearly the pinnacle of JRPGs, Suikoden II possesses, in my experience, by far the single most compelling story in a video game, and I think it’s largely in part because it keeps itself relatively simple. A story of war, of friends and family torn apart, allegiances shifting and loss and friendship; it never reaches further than it should nor ruins immersion for even a moment. It has some of the worst, saddest, most heartwrenching bad ends I’ve ever seen, and it was those that lingered in my mind far more than the ‘good ends’. The gameplay is fluid and a solid refinement of turn-based RPGs of the era, the spritework is beyond compare for each and every one of its 108 recruitable characters and the background art is perfect. The only real flaws it has is a bit of filler -- did we really need the Neclord subplot in Tinto? -- but it’s so minor as to not detract at all from the overall package.

I was six years old when Myst came out in 1993: my grandfather bought a new computer and Myst was a brand-new pack-in with the CD-ROM drive. From the moment I loaded it up, I was utterly blown away with the most gorgeously rendered, fully realized world I had ever seen in a videogame; keep in mind I was playing shit like SMB3 at the time, so Myst was a whole new world. It showed me that games could be so much more than what the NES could produce, it could be true worlds for me to explore. It helped me to learn how to read, hours spent in the library poring over the books there; it taught me my adoration for exploring empty, lonely places, and ultimately it was Myst that inspired me to legally change my name. Few games have had such a powerful impact on me, and it’s for that reason that I've forever loved the game (and the series that followed!) I cried and cried in simple joy when I learned about the recent kickstarter to rerelease all of the games; few things have managed to worm their way into my heart the way this humble little game did.

A much more recent addition, but no less important to me: Persona 5 was the first game in the series (including all of SMT) that I ever played, and the degree to which the fictionalized Tokyo is a world fully realized utterly blew me away. For dozens of hours, I lived with characters I came to love, I forged bonds and fought for justice, I agonized over which romantic overtures to accept (I went with Futaba my first time). The calendar and social link system is phenomenally cool to me, the battle system is fluid and intuitive, the Palaces had fun design (mostly; some exceptions exist). So deeply was I ensconced in that world that I ended up writing two hundred thousand words (so far) of fanfiction about it, as a result of one of the game’s few major flaws: for a game that seemed so willing to have the protagonist be such a blank slate and a cipher for the player, it saddened me immensely to be forced into one gender. Between that and a few other examples of somewhat socially regressive design (the gay panic scene, the treatment of Ann in some ways) I can’t say the game is perfect, but it’s awfully close to that for me.

I caught sight of the gigantic Earthbound box in a Blockbuster when I was a kid, and my curiosity demanded I rent it and see why it needed such a massive box - the answer, of course, was that it came with its own incredible strategy guide. Earthbound was my very first JRPG and welcomed me into a new kind of game I had never imagined. Fighting with numbers instead of jumping on an enemy's head! Equipment! Stats! A long, involved story that guided me through hugely diverse locations! Humor! Earthbound is a game that doesn't entirely hold up these days, gameplay-wise; there's way too much combat and there's not a lot to it, but its tone and writing remain absolutely top-notch, not to mention its soundtrack. Based on pure quality alone, Earthbound wouldn't be in my top 10, but its impact on my life is nearly more than any other game.

Guild Wars was a game before its time. It was perceived by many as a cheaper alternative to WoW, which had come out six months prior, but the comparisons between the games were never really fair. Guild Wars wasn't an MMO and didn't pretend to be one; it was a much cozier affair with many fewer people involved, the combat areas were all instanced to your party alone, and it had a massive emphasis on solo play with its NPC party member system. The story wasn't anything to write home about, the combat was effectively the same hotbar-based combat as WoW, and the level design was okay at best. All of that said, the character customization was incredible, forcing you to select only eight skills at any given time, so that along with the rest of your party, it was more like building a deck in a card game than standard class-based party composition. Its crossclassing was deep and helped to even further differentiate players from another, its mission system was memorable and fun, but what mostly makes Guild Wars stand out for me was the PvP content. Normally, PvP is something I have no love for, but the 8v8 guild battles were incredibly exciting, fast-paced, and frenetic like nothing else I've seen before or since. I fell in love with it right away and met a community of friends that lasted me for years, and ended up having another enormous impact on my life. I've spent four thousand hours in the game, enough to do literally every scrap of content offered, and still I go back every now and then to play through a mission; its systems just work so, so well. And this isn't even getting into a lot of the stuff that made it unique, like its super-customizable NPC party members, its incredible enemy AI, or the sheer uniqueness of the Mesmer class; there is a lot about the game that I just adore.

The RPG in which you don't have to kill anyone! Everyone knows about Undertale, so I'm sure I don't have to say too much about it. It took normal JRPG tropes and turned them on their head, its sense of humor and overall writing are absolutely outstanding, its characters memorable and varied, and the bullet hell gameplay a fun take on RPG combat. It marries its mechanics and plot more tightly than any other game I've ever played, its soundtrack is incredible, and its emotional moments took me all over the place; just thinking about the hug at the end of the game just makes me tear up. Past all the memes that spawned from it, Undertale is just an extremely solid game that more than lives up to the hype. Please play Undertale.

FFXIV, unlike Guild Wars, is a game that almost seems *after* its time. It came out in a post-WoW world where many MMOs had already played their hand and died, its combat isn't incredibly different from WoW and doesn't seem to have much to set it apart, especially considering it dares to ask a subscription. And yet, it has flourished to become one of the only subscription-based games remaining and has turned an incredible profit for its developers. This is all, I believe, because the game is a giant, well-crafted love letter to the whole series. Enemies, locations, plot mechanics are all deftly drawn from prior games and woven into a tapestry that clearly shows a great deal of love and affection for the previous entries. The story is phenomenal - not just for an MMO, but for games in general. The character animations, armor appearances, and glamour system make it one of the best dress up games available, and it helps that the combat is fun, the bosses true spectacle, and the developers remain wholly committed to the game, constantly releasing content every few months. It keeps a special place in my heart, again, for the people that I surrounded myself with while playing and the extremely fond memories I have of all of the things we did together ingame. FFXIV is incredible and more than just another MMO.

The last spot on my list was hotly contested, but I ended up having little choice but to give it to this bizarre, unknown little rhythm game. Thumper is incredibly unlike any other rhythm game you've ever played, however; even after I beat it I couldn't remember a single song, because it wasn't really about the music, which consisted primarily of pounding drums, howling screeches, and relentless, rising dread. The developers refer to it as 'rhythm violence', and that's an extremely apropos genre; the game is dark, heavy, and endlessly captivating. There's really no describing it, but it's an experience unlike any other. It's apparently available on VR, but I couldn't imagine playing it there - I'd have a heart attack.

[prismpom-moved]

Sonic Psych Hospital AU

So I managed to write little blurbs about the AU I mentioned yesterday. Here they are. 💎Sonic the Hedgehog Clinical Psychologist Sonic decided to enter into the field of psychology as he felt he had a lot of experience with emotions and could give good advice. It wasn't until he went to school for psychology that he realized some things couldn't just be cured by a pat on the back and a well-meaning smile. He quite enjoyed his psych classes. The toughest part for him was active listening portion. Often he felt like interjecting with something thoughtful but he had to restrain himself. Today he is the lead clinical psychologist at Winged Ring Psychiatric Hospital. He enjoys talking with his patients and establishing a healthy relationship so much that he often welcomes/bids them farewell with an Aloha day. He is seen as goofy and positive by his colleagues. He is married to Winged Ring's own Nicole. 💎Nicole the Lynx Art Therapist Nicole entered the field of art therapy because she loved the idea of creating things that could help others express hard-to-voice emotions. As she can materialize anything she pleases, the art portion was the easiest part, though she wouldn't say the same, she created amazing works. Psych classes were a bit of a hard spot for Nicole as she was an AI and emotions were just beginning to become tangible to her. She works as the only art therapist at Winged Ring. She is seen as excitable and slightly off her rocker by her colleagues. They believe the onslaught of information of emotions she received during her time as a student might have fried her systems a bit. Nicole is married to Sonic. 💎Miles "Tails" Prower Bio Psychologist Tails' scientific side didn't end as a child. He continued to experiment in machinery but found that his inventions only helped so many people namely his friends and family. He decided to switch into a more 'Mobian' science by studying the body and how it worked. He was most interested into the brain. Someone who worked in the same lab as him suggested a degree in Biopsychology and he pursued it all the way to a doctorate. Now he works alongside a team of other bio psychologists in the labs at Winged Ring. His colleagues would describe him as intelligent and done with Sonic's shit. 💎Knuckles the Echidna Recreational Therapist Knuckles was reluctant to pursue a degree in anything psych related. He felt that it was all just cuddles and kisses. That was until he discovered recreational therapy. The idea of knocking some sense into people who let life get to them really excited him. Fortunately for his future patients, as he endured the psych classes and spent some time working with the elderly and young, he developed a soft spot. However, he still expects the best from his patients and often puts too much pressure on their performance. He is very proud of those who try and give him effort. Knuckles' colleagues would say he's loud and supportive. 💎Amy Rose Developmental Psychologist Amy thought it was really admirable of Sonic to enter the psych field and thought that if she did too, he would notice her as an equal. Eventually Sonic noticed Amy's copycat-ish tendencies and confronted her about it. He said that though he admired her taking a liking to him so much, she should only enter into something she truly felt good about. Amy understood this and was dismayed to think she wasted her scholarship money on something she didn't care about. Luckily, what she realized was that she actually quite liked psychology. She especially loved developmental psych. Life was so precious to her and she loved the fact that if you raise a child right so many good things could come of them! But it also saddened her that many children didn't have that support and she often thought of the self-doubt she felt as a pre-teen. She wanted to make sure that no child or teen under her care would suffer as she did or any of the kids she read about. She completed the regular psych courses and jumped right into developmental psych courses. She earned a PsyD in developmental psych. Amy would be described as compassionate but hot-tempered. She works as the lead developmental psychologist at Winged Ring. She mainly works with the children's unit.