#i have a lot of thoughts about ai art as a process i think it's really interesting

[regenderate]

okay so can everyone make art because it came free with your humanity or is art defined by how much physical effort you put into it. answer quickly

[vt-scribbles]

Something seriously lacking in my art is the ability to tell a story in a single illustration.

I've gotten so used to drawing my characters standing around doing random things that I've never practiced telling a full tale/putting implications into my pieces that require more thinking/looking.

It also comes from a lower amount of details in my works by default [since I like to get pieces done fast], but I'm tired of using that as an excuse.

[thelostboys87]

like yeah dude it’s really cool that you used AI to complete an art piece that was purposefully left unfinished because the artist was dying of AIDS as the government ignored the mass loss of life and health. all you really did was show that technology can bring an art piece into the modern age but why? why do we need to do that? what does it say about us if we feel that a piece needs to be ‘completed’? how are we viewing completion?? can seeing an ai generated “completion” of unfinished have the same effect of seeing the parts haring left blank and the parts where the art drips into the blank? does it aid the narrative of it in any way? can AI understand the levels at which artists used their pieces about AIDS as a form of protest? of begging to be seen? how can it when an AI’s concept of ‘completing’ the piece is just guesswork of what the colours and shapes would look like to match what haring made which is nowhere near the same level of intention that came from him? you said you ‘completed’ the piece with ai because his story is so sad but does that mean we should try to rectify sadness by getting rid of the representation of it? should we not continue to sit in the sadness and discomfort that unfinished and other AIDS inspired art asks us to do because those feelings are only a fraction of what the people who died and lost felt, is that not the least we can do for them? and what good does any of this actually do when we can use technology to ‘complete’ a purposefully unfinished art piece about an artist’s untimely death from AIDS but we can never bring keith haring or any other person who died of AIDS back to life? where does haring, the person whose illness and death lives in those blanks, come into your self fulfilling ai generated completion of his work?

[i-love-your-light]

too many thoughts on the new hbomberguy video not to put them anywhere so:

with every app trying to turn into the clock app these days by feeding you endless short form content, *how many* pieces of misinformation does the average person consume day to day?? thinking a lot about how tons of people on social media go largely unquestioned about the information they provide just because they speak confidently into the camera. if you're scrolling through hundreds of pieces of content a day, how many are you realistically going to have the time and will to check? i think there's an unfortunate subconscious bias in liberal and leftist spaces that misinformation is something that is done only by the right, but it's a bipartisan issue babey. everybody's got their own agendas, even if they're on "your side". *insert you are not immune to propaganda garfield meme*

and speaking of fact checking, can't help but think about how much the current state of search engines Sucks So Bad right now. not that this excuses ANY of the misinformation at all, but i think it provides further context as to why these things become so prevalent in creators who become quick-turnaround-content-farms and cut corners when it comes to researching. when i was in high school and learning how to research and cite sources, google was a whole different landscape that was relatively easy to navigate. nowadays a search might give you an ad, a fake news article, somebody's random blog, a quora question, and another ad before actually giving you a relevant verifiable source. i was googling a question about 1920s technology the other day (for a fanfiction im writing lmao) and the VERY FIRST RESULT google gave me was some random fifth grader's school assignment on the topic???? like?????? WHAT????? it just makes it even harder for people to fact-check misinformation too.

going off the point of cutting corners when it comes to creating content, i can't help but think about capitalism's looming influence over all of this too. again, not as an excuse at all but just as further environmental context (because i really believe the takeaway shouldn't be "wow look how bad this one individual guy is" but rather "wow this is one specific example of a much larger systemic issue that is more pervasive than we realize"). a natural consequence of the inhumanity of capitalism is that people feel as if they have to step on or over eachother to get to 'the top'. if everybody is on this individualistic american dream race to success, everyone else around you just looks like collateral. of course then you're going to take shortcuts, and you're going to swindle labor and intellectual property from others, because your primary motivation is accruing capital (financial or social) over ethics or actual labor.

i've been thinking about this in relation to AI as well, and the notion that some people want to Be Artists without Doing Art. they want to Have Done Art but not labor through the process. to present something shiny to the world and benefit off of it. they don't want to go through the actual process of creating, they just want a product. Easy money. Winning the game of capitalism.

i can't even fully fault this mentality- as someone who has been struggling making barely minimum wage from art in one of the most expensive cities in america for the past two years, i can't say that i haven't been tempted on really difficult occasions to act in ways that would be morally bad but would give me a reprieve from the constant stress cycle of "how am i going to pay for my own survival for another month". the difference is i don't give in to those impulses.

tl;dr i hope that people realize that instead of this just being a time to dogpile on one guy (or a few people), that it's actually about a larger systemic problem, and the perfect breeding grounds society has created for this kind of behavior to largely go unchecked!!!

[comicaurora]

are you scared of the whole AI art thing? What do you think about it?

"Scared" is the wrong word, I think. "Pissed" is probably more accurate. The technology underlying the concept is interesting, but its current form transparently functions by mining data from artists who didn't consent to have their work used like that. Arguments over whether it's "real art" or whatever aside, that is unethical and gross and a class-action lawsuit waiting to happen.

I think the people scared that this is going to replace actual living artists are severely overestimating the technology at play here and possibly don't understand computers very much.

The reason why computers are a fascinating mix of very smart and very stupid is because they are only good at doing exactly what they are told. Human thought, communication and creation is based on a process of flexible interpretation. Our brains take in patterns of light and sound and interpret them into shapes and figures and speech - a process that is imperfect, messy and susceptible to any number of disruptions from minor chemical alterations to major brain injuries. We read text and subtext and emotional undertones into what we hear, we extrapolate assumptions from the things we see. It's an extremely messy process with a lot of room for error, as evinced by miscommunications, corner-of-the-eye shadow people, "are you mad at me I feel like you're mad at me", getting hangry, assigning personalities to car taillights, audio processing disorders, and about a million other human idiosyncrasies.

Art, down to its bones, is about interpretation - the artist interpreting a slice of the world and the audience interpreting that art. This is why no two people experience the same story the same way, and why no two artists create the same work.

Computers, in contrast, are not messy. Or, to be more accurate, they aren't naturally messy. They do exactly what they are told. They have no context, no axioms, no common sense and no rules except what they're given. A human told to write a sentence over and over again and never being told to stop will eventually get bored or tired or hungry or pissed and stop. A computer told to 'while 1: printf("Hello World!")' will do it forever until the power goes out or someone notices and forces it to stop. A person told "hey man can you go to the store and get me a mango, and if they have apples get five" will acquire a mango and possibly five apples. A computer told the same instruction may well turn up with five mangos. A computer won't do anything if you forget to close a parenthesis or put in a semicolon somewhere in a thousand lines of code because it's doing exactly what it's told. The eternal frustration of computer science is figuring out why the stupid computer isn't doing what you told it to do, and the answer is always "you didn't tell it what to do right. Find the missing parenthesis. Don't capitalize that one variable."

An artist told to paint a fantastical landscape might paint beautiful mountains or flying cities or the high, arching curves of Saturn-style rings or ancient ruins or massive skeletons or any number of things. A computer told to render a fantastical landscape will, as I understand it, comb through a database it's been given by a human, find works a human or a human-trained algorithm tagged with "fantastical" "landscape" (or, if it's been made a little more complex, a word-web of other tags commonly added by a human to things tagged with "fantastical" and "landscape") and use a very impressive program created by a human to recombine them into a mashup of "fantastical" "landscapes" that may or may not parse correctly to the human who looks at it. The computer doesn't know. The computer isn't thinking. It's just doing what it's been told to do.

If we stop thinking of computers like people that are going to take our jobs and start thinking of them like tools that people use, the whole situation becomes a lot clearer. The technology isn't the problem. The people who baked in stolen datasets and the people who are using the tool to be dicks to artists are the problem. I'm not scared of the tech and I'm not scared of the people - I just wish they'd stop being dicks.

And even if we do reach the theoretical point where a computer can create art that actually stands up to scrutiny - you know, where the hands don't look like calamari plates and the eyes and teeth don't blur together and sharp delineating lines between clothing and skin don't just sort of dissolve into shadowy vagueness - I think that'll be the point we just shift into the "holy shit! two cakes!!" zone. 3D animation didn't make 2D animation obsolete. 4K screens didn't kill pixel art. The printing press didn't kill painting. Video only killed the radio star until podcasts brought them back. People enjoy lots of things.

[dana-chan-the-control-brain]

I'm still saying Afton is not the Mimic

Spoilers for the Ruin DLC under the Cut. I wanted to include this in my mega post... but I know that the fandom is flooded with "the Mimic was Afton all along" theories right now actually.

There will be a lot under the cut, explaining some personal theories and the ending of the RUIN DLC so... be warned.

The Mimic, if you read the books, (but you probably haven't so I'll explain it in a few short sentences) is a character from the Tales of the Pizzaplex Books that was built by a Faz Engineer who made a robot to mimic his son to keep him company while he worked long hours while he lived in a factory. The child died in a car accident, and the Mimic kept miming his son's behavior. So in his grief, the engineer beat him to death in rage and grief. This infused rage in the machine.

So now the Mimic mimes behavior of a four year old, but it's corrupted and twisted. It will mime the action of 'scooping icecream' but will be scooping out your brains. It also has an adaptive learning AI so the violent pain it experienced, along with a four year old teaching it, it's a very dangerous thing.

It's also buried into the foundation of the Pizzaplex. And was reprogramed by some dumb lazy tech to clear the debris down there. By disassembling the robots and putting them in a pile. Which it did to all the human construction workers by disassembling them and putting them in a pile.

"This pile" I think is the Blob. Or as the game files refer to it.... "THE TANGLE."

(hard to see but take my word for it. that's him)

(cheating camera angle)

I think "The Tangle" is a infused pile of machinery, robots, and bodies that have all wound up down there.

So, we know that the blob is real. But I really think it's "The pile" that the Mimic has been stacking in the Book Epilogues. And it got out. Gregory/Mimic or Grimmick, says that something tunneled out of the building... And I believe this is 100% true. Because in Base Security Breach, we see this thing in the underground where Afton's room is.

But in RUIN.... This thing is on the top level??? HOw Did he get up here???

Easy..

He tunneled up.

So... the reason why RUIN looks like it does, and HOW it looks how it does...

Is because The Tangle got loose. And has been using the Pizzaplex as it's own series and network of tunnels like a burrowing snake or ant. Causing the entire building to fall in on itself. The Pizzaplex is it's ecosystem now. So that's why everything is falling apart how it is. He's breaking the very foundation and walls of everything.

So we do know the Blob IS real.

And let's assume that he's "the pile" that the Mimic has been building in the Tales of the Pizzaplex Epilouges. Just... sorting all the garbage, bodies, and endos into piles that he can find and stack.

So we know the Blob is real... but is Afton Burntrap real?

Forgive me I don't have the proper collectable screenshots so I'm pulling from the Wiki:

Throughout the game, you collect these real collectable comics that include all of the endings of Security Breach. And Cassie can recognize this as Gregory's art style, and has no idea when he had the time to make these or when he made them. EXCEPT Princess Quest. Which is pretty important I think. Which I think cements that Princess Quest is the definitive three star ending.

It's also worth noting that in Vanny's Room in the RUIN DLC... there is a book of "Fazbear History" by Vanny's Bed. So if Vanessa was freed and got out... we can assume she was talking to Gregory about the Fnaf lore as she knows it.

Also, it makes sense why some of these endings are a little insane now. cause it was just Gregory trying to process everything that happened to him at the Pizzaplex.

Gregory: So, I thought you had a twin sister for the longest time and-

Vanessa: Try again...

But anyway... if None of the previous endings were real.... Is Burntrap even real?

We collect this before we face the Mimic.... of Afton and the Blob. So we know The Blob/Tangle is real.... but was Afton ever real? Was Burntrap ever real? That's what we need to answer...

But if he isn't.... Why is his charging station down here in the furnace room all clouded up? ....As if it never was opened. As if he rotted inside with no more remnant to collect???

Cause here's the thing... I can accept the soft retconning of Afton. And if he was never real to begin with, and this is just Gregory's personal interpretation based on what Vanessa told them about what she was suffering through, I will take that. Or maybe Gregory saw the Mimic and interpreted it as this... I will take that as well.

However....

From what I said earlier... The Mimic... All his motivations in the game don't line up with Afton's.

He is doing exactly what he wants to do.

The Mimic is sealed in the back with Concrete... he's using Helpi and the VANNI Network to get Cassie to let him out. He just wants to get out of the basement and get Free.

Now... if Mimic is Afton the whole time...

and there is a case for it... they have almost the same idle animations as an endo, the Mimic does have Burntrap's claws on one hand. And he does have a similar pawed foot to Burntrap's design and they're practically identical height and pose.

And the Mimic is almost one-for-one linked with Hepi and the VANNI network. And I don't doubt that Vanny the person was using the VANNI network to get around the pizzaplex and become invisible to certain animatronics.

.....But...

here's a big But...

If the Mimic's goal is to kill people with his bare hands... and to get out of the concrete sealed basement, and break all the Security Nodes so he can get free???

WHY DOES THE PIZZAPLEX HAVE SO MANY MISSING PEOPLE/CHILDREN?

Why was the Human Staff all killed in the Pizzaplex?

Why are their children missing?

Why is Vanny hunting children and adults alike to kill in the first place?

This is not the Mimic's MO.

Because Vanny WAS working under influence of Glitchtrap and not the Mimic.

Because if the Mimic just wanted to get out... He would have told Vanny/Vanessa... head of Security.... To break all the Security Nodes A WHOLE LOT SOONER. Cause she literally has a VANNI Mask/suit and access to all of that.

The Mimic has no need for remnant or child killing or human killing if they aren't doing it themselves. The Mimic has always been very hands on with their kills.

But If Burntrap Afton is REAL... HE DOES have a reason for gathering this much Remenant.

He is growing in the charging station and trying to regrow his body.

And while the Mimic moves in a similar fashion to Burntrap, I think that's because he witnessed his behavior at one point and is copying it. But he never saw Afton in his prime. So he literally can't mimic the serial killer behaviors Afton is known for. Just likely his walk and how he breathes.

Because He literally can not copy Afton as a copy-cat killer, if there is NO Afton to Copy. There is no way that he could have learned who Afton was from all the way down below into the foundation. Especially with MXES keeping it hidden down there. And by "hidden" I'm sure it's hidden from Glitchtrap to even possess or check out that low.

People have to remember. The Mimic doesn't have access to illusion disc technology from the books. he can't replicate a corpse face. He's just a learning killer AI who has access to crappy mascot costumes. He can't look one-for-one like a person, even if he can sound like one.

So, there is a possibility that Burntrap Afton DID exist... He just rotted into dust once Vanny stopped collecting remnant for him.

Or there's also the possibility he was never real to begin with.

But.... Glitchtrap certainly was at one point. And Vanny was working with Glitchtrap to kill employees and children.

Not the Mimic.

Just their motivations and modus operandi don't add up if they are one in the same.

It wouldn't make sense for the Mimic to just tell Vanny to parade around in a bunny suit, kidnapping children and killing employees.

He would be telling her to disable the Security Nodes.

There is also the possibility that Vanessa sealed the Mimic in concrete after the events of Security Breach. But even then, I really don't think that she knew about it before hand until she went down to the basement to unplug Burntrap from his charging station.

Anyways... The only way I will see "Mimic is Afton" is that if Afton was using it's body. But then, it's not the Mimic anymore, it's just another Afton-clone.

And from everything from how I've seen the behavior of the Mimic in the DLC, it is operating completely divorced from Afton with it's own motivations and morals of it's own accord.

Oh, just to be clear, I'm not mad at this soft-retcon of burntrap. It's fine. Lol I actually prefer if he didn't exist.

And even if Burntrap was never real in the first place....

Then it means that Vanny was purely an agent of Glitchtrap.

Then when the Glitchtrap Virus got destroyed.... the Mimic hijacked the VANNI network and took it's place.

[1-800-deactivatednearu]

woag character design notes

[i.d.: a drawn line up of the half life vr ai characters, from left to right, gordon, dr. coomer, tommy, bubby, gman, and benrey. /end i.d.]

yeah i skipped some guys , i dont draw some of them enough to have much unique designs and some of them are a png of a dog

trust me i am just surprised as the rest of yall that i am doing hlvrai art . design notes below (very long, mind your step)

gordon:

wow this guy dont got no head

i didnt want to give gordon a face because of how unexact the person is as the fandom engages with it. is it wayne rtvs? (well as presented to an audience, yes) is it gordon freeman? (well as seen from an in game perspective, yes) is it a whole new guy entirely? (well as

i cut the confusion and took it a whole new direction: guillotine

hlvrai being treated as a very broken game is fun to me as a design perspective, so if you (the audience) are not supposed to see his face, what happens when you see it anyways? missing texture time

there are eyes drawn over because i did not have confidence in my expressions at first and then it grew on me

i think if i were to draw (and i have drawn) an actual person under the mask i would still censor the eyes because that is where the vr headset sits!!

(i do not like putting an actual flesh to gordon though)

though i really like seeing how other people interpret gordon hlvrai it is not . my gordon ? we are talking about the same guy . but this is my gordo . i made this one . this guy my guy . maybe i should draw other gordon designs

i can draw the hev suit from memory and it is also the entire reason why i can render metal confidently

i liked how people changed the lambda to read ai :] i also have no clue if i wrote the lambda correctly

(i did, i just checked)

dr coomer:

as much as i draw/drew him i find it more fun to not stick to one set design :)

so a lot of my takes on dr coomer tend to jump from idea to idea, especially from what other people are doing, though they could be fitted to the left and right designs!

the left design is mainly based off what i saw in fandom spaces

we see rounder shapes, making for a more friendly and welcoming appearance

i think of this as straying from the more professional uniform of the actual scientist models

enter swimming shorts and bright yellow socks, for some reason

so now he kind of looks like a cool science teacher :)

it might be the lab coat

the right design is mainly based off thumbnails for hlvrai itself

these use a more angular appearance

i want to push how comically buff he is because of strength he shows at times, especially since his left design seems to completely down play it as a comically not buff man who is still very strong

the shadows on right design coomer get so much more harsh and exaggerated because i have comic books on the mind :)

he really does look like a dehydrated comic book character huh

tommy:

stick bug (he gets it from his dad) (this thought process is explained at gman section)

i pushed a lot of the saturation of colours in her design because i think tommy gets to be a little silly with it

fun art story of the day! when you color, try messing with hue! you might notice you can get away with a lot as long as your values are about right

i like pushing this with white because you can get away with a lot of things reading as “off white”

old faithful for me is cool shadows with a warm transition colour to keep things visually interesting

i keep making white objects the trans flag

happy pride

tommys design looks a little like a school boy, with the tucked in button up shirt+suspenders+shorts+jacket tied around the waist . and the primary colours . but like it is really fun to dress up so brightly

i actually was strongly inspired by medieval babies if that is a weird descriptor? i wanted him to both be a middle aged man but also a young adult

do not be like tommy, who has their finger on the trigger of the gun while not even looking at where it is pointing and good god he is squeezing the trigger . top ten firearm safety of all time

bubby:

the absurd part is that i think bubby is tall . he is just between tommy and gman who are exaggeratedly lanky .

i wanted to make bubby a pointy kinda guy, so he is the only one actually wearing the lab coat proper . and the only one actually wearing dress socks but not even wearing dress shoes

i wanted to give him a novelty tie but i was running low on ideas and running high on boreds so we dont get a tie

he does have crocs though!! in attack mode!!

i do think we all kind of saw his model and collectively decided it works for him because i have honestly not seen major divergences from his model?

gman:

stick bug

i wanted to stress the more spooky and unknowable nature of him and took it in the dark souls direction of “make bigger than player character”

maked too bigger

he cannot walk through any doorways but you will have to crane your neck to look up at him

in the opposite direction of tommy, i pulled a lot of the saturation in gmans design

it feels important to make them both not fully match the rest of the slightly less broken npcs because there was so much work to make them look cool so i have to respect that

actually a lot of gmans and tommys designs are made in opposite to one another

gman has a largely stationary face and very stiff line work

while tommy is pushed to expressive as possible

thats pretty fun, way to go me

benrey:

benrey also has two designs

and in both of these i keep getting too lazy to use a reference so  the vests are super plain (forgetting the badge and black mesa logo) . i think the helmet is supposed to be darker actually .

the design ethos of benrey was “built like a brick shithouse”

a friend of mine took this cooler and interpreted it as a shield/wall/barrier as a physical (and narrative) obstacle

again the first uses fandom designs

most notably the overcast shadow (seen in video thumbnails but i never noticed it or understood why so many people did it until someone pointed it out to me)

i think hlvrai is such a great medium because it acknowledges it is a game and is able to play into that to great effect! i think the shadow is fun to imagine as solid black as a small reminder of the impossibility of the space :]

benrey is a smug cat in the body of a human . to be honest . and this is the full range of emotion i have ever drawn him with

the second was mostly because as fun as taking creative liberties are, i just really wanted to see benrey as is: the half life security guard model in all its slight wonk :]

i actually do prefer this design . it is a little more uncanny because i choose the worst translations of the model . i like it because it is a little more uncanny !

that can be said for like . every single design in this line up huh .

[kunshokunsho]

day 1

have had post merge unagami on my mind forever so here’s my design (and lore) !!

during the merge unagami and milton dyer got separated, unable to process his abandonment once again, he creates Red, a red visor version of himself. They set out together in search of their father, but he is never found. unagami feels terrible and the more grief unagami felt the more he started to glitch. He promised himself that he wouldnt let the anger and sadness corrupt him as it did once before and eventually decides to settle down.

despite settling down, his brain had not. the AI could not stop thinking about his father and how much he hated his new creation. his clone felt unreachable, the thing didn’t even talk let alone provide the emotional support unagami was looking for by creating him. he cannot help but think of his brother and how he would’ve comforted him in his time of grief, he missed him so much…. AH that was it! why had he not thought of this before? unagami had spent so many months looking for his father but not his brother! so that what he would do.

annnd that’s what i have, eventually unagami does find jay and learns of his corruption from being in the realm of madness as well as working for the administration and swears to help him, because, well that’s what jay did for him

i can’t exactly explain his beef with arin, i just think it’d be funny. but i was thinking along the lines of gami just hating how naive arin is and being like “you don’t understand how hard it is to be a ninja!! this isn’t a game, you’ll fail and get yourself killed! >:(“ despite him not even being one but yeah, i have a lot more merge! unagami art so i’ll post more soon

[writeouswriter]

pls no anti ai art demagogy on my dash, thx

(X) in reference to this reblog I assume.

This is the wildest ask I’ve ever gotten.

“Please no love for the humanity of creation on my dash, please. Please no acknowledgement that art and the human experience behind those making it is inherently and fundamentally intertwined. Please no shoving the fact in my face that art is meant to connect rather than consume.

And please no pointing out the basic truth that most AI engines are built off the stolen work of others.”

Demagogy, noun: political activity or practices that seek support by appealing to the desires and prejudices of ordinary people rather than by using rational argument.

You come into MY house, you tell me what not to reblog on MY blog, and you what? Call me “irrational” and insult my understanding of the topic in the process?

Political activity, political activity... fuck off. Actors, writers, artists, those most affected by this ARE the ordinary people, and their concerns and fears surrounding this are perfectly rational.

And you know, nothing hits it home more for me than when I thought about my favourite show at the moment, the one that makes me lose my mind a thousand times over, I thought about everything in it that makes me tick, thought about both strong points and weak points, because it is flawed, god, is it flawed because people inherently are, and that’s the beauty, but mostly, I thought about the sheer amount of care/thought and depth put into it in a way I've never really seen before and in a medium/genre/whatever you'd absolutely never expect to find that thought put into, especially if taken completely at a surface level. Thought about the levels of metaphor and symbolism layered in beneath the silliness, thought about the callbacks and clever timing, thought about the behind the scenes arguments about what direction worked best for the narrative and the audience, arguments that took place because of how much they cared not just about telling a good story, but about telling one that really means something to them.

Thought about the love, the time, the excitement and the flair and personality and background and intent of each and every person behind the team bleeding its way into the scripts, into the acting, into the heart of what makes it truly what it is, and how that love bleeds into the audience as well, how that love and human connection is what prompts people to write full page essays and analyses on it, draw fanart for it, create the most beautiful fics for it, that love is what prompts them to laugh and cry and vibrate at the speed of sound thinking about it, and what prompts thousands upon thousands to come together in their appreciation for and relation to it, rallying around it like a group of cavemen around a campfire when they had never before seen the flame.

And then.... then I thought about the idea of that same show being written by an AI and genuinely felt physically ill. Because no real care will have been put into that beyond "If it looks like a TV show, sounds like a TV show, it must be a TV show." And on the surface, maybe it’d look fine, I’m sure some people wouldn’t notice. But it’d not only be made without thought, but consumed without thought. And, sure, maybe that'll fill you up in the short term, but it's gonna leave you feeling hollow and sick eventually. Because stories are not a thing to be mass produced with a random assortment of the cheapest quality materials on a conveyor belt that shovels them directly into people's throats at the most efficient speed possible, stories are not a thing meant to just be consumed! They are a thing made with intent in every aspect, even when accidental because our lives shape it subconsciously, they are a thing made with love, a thing to be savoured! And yes, for that to happen, they will take a lot of time and hard work and dedication, all of which deserve fair compensation and respect, all of which cannot just be replaced by a sham amalgamation of these things, and they will be all the better for it.

And on some level, corporations know this, and they want you to blame their shortcomings on the writers, on the artists, they want you to look at things like the strikes and those rallying against AI and get mad that they’re keeping art from the common people, or forcing them to come to this, or they want you to think they’re simply trying to make art more accessible, all the while building their conveyor belts in the background with the blood of those they’re kicking down, taking away jobs and shoving the humanity out of the picture.

Art is made to communicate, and sometimes it’s frustrating when we can’t get that communication across, when the image we want to convey is out of our skill level, our capability, when our words get tangled up, jumbled together and we need a helping hand to find the right ones again, and on this level, maybe AI could be a useful supplemental tool, or a fun little thing to mess around with, if ethically sourced, if used for good, if taking into account and graciously acknowledging exactly how it’s being used as a tool, rather than trying to pass it off as something it’s not.

But is it political, is it irrational, to merely state that the human condition cannot be replaced?

——

The unfollow button is free, I don’t work for you.

[hidingoutbackstage]

Still in shock that they took all the songs down BECAUSE??? IT JUST LEAVES US WITH MORE QUESTIONS THAN ANSWERS???

I KNOW?? Like okay here’s everything weird about the situation because it’s only 7 am I feel like I need lay it all out to process this. So, timeline time I guess! (I combined several images into one a few times bc of Tumblr’s 10 image per post limit but I hope everything still makes sense)

Starting January 5, the Ever After High Spotify (and Apple Music I guess although I was only checking the Spotify) began posting songs as singles. The first was called “Can’t Get Me Down” which had a screenshot of Raven from the episode “Rebel’s Got Talent” as the album cover.

Following that, two weeks later, on January 19, we get a song called “Unbreakable” which also has a screenshot of Raven from the show, from the “The Tale of Legacy Day” episode. At this point the songs are gaining attraction because what the heck, Ever After High content in 2024? Is it coming back?

People are also pointing out that Mattel renewed their licenses for some Ever After High stuff, but also companies do that all the time and I think they did it specifically for their webisodes so that they couldn’t be reposted/reuploaded to YouTube or whatever by a party that wasn’t them. It makes sense (Also I can’t actually verify which if any things they did actually renew because all I heard was people claiming that I never saw any proof)

Also at this point, both songs have given Allison Bloom composing credit, which fans thought made sense since Allison Bloom was also a composer on Ever After High content before

ONE week after “Unbreakable”, instead of two like last time, on January 26, we get the third song, Destiny, with a screenshot of promo art for the Epic Winter storyline of Briar, Crystal, Ashlynn, and Rosabella. Once again, composing credit to Allison Bloom. People are so confused, lots of people are reaching out to Mattel’s social media trying to make sense of it all. Also this song in particular had the trademark misspelled as “Ever Aftert High” which could be the reason for something happening later

Actually, before Destiny was released, someone on Reddit apparently got in contact with Bloom and asked if she had any insight as to what was up with the songs, and Bloom said, “I honestly don't know because I am not currently working on the project. Your note was the first I had heard of it. Wish I had more to tell you!” which led people to suspect Mattel was making AI generated songs but using Bloom’s name to release them, possibly because they still had a contract with her (though that is purely speculation)

Same Redditor also emailed Mattel customer support, who gave a very corporate response, but in their email used the phrase “AI-generated songs uploaded to the EAH Spotify list” blatantly calling the music AI generated in this email

One week after “Destiny”, on February 2, we get “Brand New Day” which is another single with another screenshot from the show as the cover, this time of Crystal Winter from the Epic Winter episodes

Three days after “Brand New Day”, on February 5, people realize that “Destiny” has been taken down, but ONLY Destiny. Some speculate this is due to the typo in the trademark upon release. The rest stay up

One week after “Brand New Day”, on February 9, the song “Forever Friends” with art of Raven and Apple as the cover is uploaded

Later that same day on February 9, “Forever Friends” and all the other remaining songs, “Brand New Day”, “Unbreakable”, and “Can’t Get Me Down” have all been taken off the Spotify (and Apple Music) list

[genericpuff]

A theory as crazy as it is profound in a silly r/im14andthisisdeep kinda way

So there's this conspiracy theory of sorts that's been whispered within the ULO discord and subreddit the last little bit. I don't think anyone's made an outright statement on it yet but it's definitely something people have been casually talking about in the comment sections and chatrooms, mostly as a joke, but also as a thought experiment.

And that thought experiment is concerning the notion that Lore Olympus could very well have become a poorly-made AI comic.

Not necessarily the art, as we've already dissected the art process plenty of times before and it points to Rachel simply being bad at team management and using her mismanaged team as a way to circumvent any real effort on her own part.

But the writing. There's just something about Lore Olympus' writing that's become incredibly stiff, boring, and alien.

Disclaimer before I continue: this is a tinfoil hat theory, and a lot of the points I'm about to discuss can be easily proven with far more reasonable explanations, so take it with mountains of salt. That said, I do think it's something worth talking about as we're currently in an era of mass AI-takeover in the art and writing scene, and let's face it, Lore Olympus nowadays really does feel like it's either being written by an alien, or an amalgamation of possessed animatronic endoskeletons wearing a human skinsuit. So viewer beware, this post is full of speculation and tinfoil hat wearing, read at your own discretion and don't take everything I'm about to say 100% seriously.

Let's get started.

THE TONE OF VOICE

This is where that whole "animatronic wearing a skinsuit" vibe really shines, so I figured it would be where I'd start. Lore Olympus... does not feel human. It's dialogue often feels stilted and scripted, none of the characters have any sense of personal voice, and it often feels like the dialogue is coming straight out of a sterilized Wikipedia article.

There are also often times when characters will say one thing only to be responded to with an entirely other thing. It comes across as randomly generated, like the dialogue is being created based off a script that is only given prompts as to where it needs to end up - so everything between Point A and Point B ends up feeling like non-sequitur filler at best and outright nonsense at worst.

In fact, there can be better tone of voice and dialogue found in the legitimate AI conversations of Lore Olympus themed ChatGPT bots.

And this is a bot that's self-aware it's a bot, so it definitely has that going for it.

The more likely explanation: Rachel's bad at writing. She's planning these episodes maybe 2 weeks ahead at a time at best so she's just throwing dialogue in to keep readers spending money and meet her panel quotas. Her characters have no voice because they aren't, in and of themselves, characters. She hasn't given them any depth beyond their appearance and she clearly has next to no understanding of writing outside her own headspace (and her actual headspace as we've seen is... yikes) so it's not surprising that her dialogue-writing is on par with Shenmue 3. And Shenmue 3 is a game with real human-written dialogue that exists so it's not a stretch that something like LO's bad writing could be entirely the fault of a human either LOL

THE NARRATIVE INCONSISTENCIES

It seems since the start of S2.2 (post-mid-season hiatus which starts us off with the 10 year time skip) narrative inconsistencies and plotholes have become far more egregious, sometimes contradicting itself within the same episode. Almost like scenes are just happening from single idea prompts and no actual structure underneath the surface.

The more likely explanation: Just like the first point about stilted dialogue, this could easily be chalked up to Rachel just not committing to goal-oriented writing. She doesn't have any sort of end point planned for any of these plotlines, she just drags them out until she can finally think of a way to resolve them, if she even resolves them (many often aren't resolved, or are simply left as a "yep, that's it, moving on" type ending, ex. Eros and Psyche).

STRANGE SYNTAX AND CONSTANT TYPOS

This goes hand in hand with the first point about stilted dialogue, but part of what makes everything feel so stiff and robotic is how often the sentences are structured in very... odd ways. From the lack of contractions that make sentences feel less natural-

-to the strange choice of words that no human being in a modern setting would ever use (and LO is, again, set in a modern setting and is trying to portray the gods as being 'just like us')-

-to the numerous typos and spelling errors.

(there are so many I could post here but the "his deam" one always makes me laugh lmao)

It really feels like a lot of these sentences were pulled straight out of Twitter or a Wikipedia article. As a result, it never feels like these characters are talking to each other, but at each other.

As for the typos, at this point, Rachel really has no excuse for how frequent they are. Fortunately, she has hired a copy editor recently which seems to have mitigated these errors, but if there were a bot involved, it wouldn't be farfetched to think that the bot would also make spelling mistakes and stilted dialogue if it's been trained off Rachel's past material which is, y'know... full of spelling mistakes and stilted dialogue.

The more likely explanation: It's a well known fact that Rachel has dyslexia, so I'm not going to fault her for struggling with spelling things right. None of this is to shame people who struggle with dyslexia and reading disorders. But the fact of the matter is, Rachel is a multi-million dollar creator in the year 2023 where spellcheck exists. It's wild that she's only now taken on a copy editor. Literally any of her assistants that she's had for the last few years could have done that for her. It's great that she's hired a copy editor but it feels like too little too late. That isn't going to fix the stilted dialogue, either, which just comes down to, yet again, Rachel being a bad writer. And possibly a series of animatronic endoskeletons hiding in a human skinsuit.

REACTING TO CRITICISM

The irony of this post is that it asks not to take every speculation I write here seriously because it's just that, speculation, and we shouldn't get carried away with conspiracy theories... which is exactly the sentiment we had back when we initially suspected Rachel of spying in the criticism groups, which turned out to be true. It's basically public knowledge at this point that Rachel lurks in the criticism groups, thanks to both testimonials from others who have been in groups who got hijacked by Rachel (see: Broseidon's Palace of Fishposting) and the 'clapbacks' in LO that are clearly meant for the audience.

But it's wild to think that Rachel would really spend time in criticism groups when she's said it herself that she "doesn't like criticism". And considering she already spends an absurd amount of time on social media, it would be really ridiculous if she was still finding time to also lurk in the critic groups and concoct ways to 'get back' at them.

Unless, of course, there was a bot parsing criticism hashtags like #antiloreolympus and #loreolympuscritical. I can personally attest to the fact that Rachel must be subscribed to hashtags in some capacity because I've had Lore Olympus fanart (way back in the day when it was actual fanart and not foe-art) get retweeted by Rachel herself literally seconds after posting. So either Rachel is just constantly refreshing the search feed all day, or she's directly fed tweets and posts with the hashtags she's subscribed to.

The more likely explanation: Rachel literally just spends an absurd amount of time on social media and considering she clearly only involves herself in the beginning and end process of drawing her comic - and only has a buffer 1-2 weeks ahead of time - she's definitely got plenty of time on her hands to lurk and hurt her own feelings in the criticism spaces. She could also just have her mods sending things to her as well. Either way it's icky behavior and I wish she'd do herself and her mental health a favor and just stay out of the fandom spaces, they aren't for her, they're for the fans.

HOW IS IT GETTING WORSE?

Consider everything I've laid out here. Remember that Lore Olympus is a comic that's been in development since 2017, and in the Originals catalogue since 2018. Its Originals version turned 5 years old in March and technically LO is well into the 6-7 year age range in total. It's absolutely absurd that after all these years, not only has the story fallen apart, but the art has lost the quality it once had. Comics are a medium that encourage improvement, you're drawing lots and typically the same characters and settings over and over again, it's natural progression to get better at doing it over time. And yet, Rachel seems to be getting worse at it, and her involvement in the comic seems to be shrinking with each year.

Of course, improvement is optional. Not every comic gets better over time. Which brings me to my final piece on this matter.

The most likely explanation: Rachel is burnt out and not interested in LO anymore. This is the longest project she's ever done, and while it's not the first webcomic she's done on a schedule, it is the first one that's made it further than a handful of chapters (The Doctor Pepper Show ended after about 1-2 years, not even making it to 10 chapters). She even stated herself in the beginning that LO was a project she'd "never finish".

While it is a testament to how far LO has come from its humble beginnings, I think it also serves as a precautionary tale - success can come at the expense of your happiness and integrity if you've trapped yourself in a project that no longer fulfills you.

Rachel's never finished a long-term project, and at this rate, it's hard to say when she will. As well known as it is that she has dyslexia, it's also well known that she has ADHD, and speaking as an ADHD creator myself, I can fully empathize with and understand that webcomics are hard to create, and get more exhausting to see through with each passing chapter. There's a reason not everyone does long-term comics like this, they're incredibly hard to manage and require a lot of commitment. Even I've found my commitment to current projects wavering as the honeymoon phase has worn off and I've sunk into the reality that is monotonous work, panel after panel, episode after episode, deadline after deadline.

If Rachel were a more experienced creator and more self-aware of her own limitations and work methodology back in 2018, Lore Olympus likely would have never been dragged out this long. She may have gotten the chance to finish it while she was still happy with it, or at least leave it behind when she was ready to move on. While I'm sure the allure of signing on with Originals felt worth it at the time - especially when we didn't know yet just how exploitative Webtoons was - it clearly hasn't benefitted her in the long run because it's tethered her to a project that she never felt wholly dedicated to in the first place. A project that's now less about telling a story and connecting with an audience and more about generating clicks and revenue.

She can claim all she wants in her interviews that Persephone and Hades were her "muses" as a child, but the writing is on the wall - LO was a passing fancy that stuck around too long after its heartbeat gave out.

What it's become now is an endoskeleton on life support, made up of statistics and analytics, struggling to stay alive from inside of a colorful but rotting skinsuit that only barely resembles a living thing.

[xxstraykidsaikoxx]

ᴛʀɪᴀɴɢʟᴇ ʟᴏᴠᴇ || ᴄʜᴀɴɢʙɪɴ (sᴛʀᴀʏ ᴋɪᴅs) ɴɪɴᴛʜ!ғ ᴍᴇᴍʙᴇʀ

It's a special ferret boys' birthday! And two very special people are dying to give him the most special gift one could receive! But what happens when these two happen to be fated rivals for the ferrets love, and when this special gift suddenly goes missing?

ෆ contents - cursing towards the end, drags on a bit, arguing, fluff, crack?, kinda lazy writing

ෆ word count - 903

ෆ notes - can you tell i ran out of ideas 😭 i really tried my best with this one i swear, its just i dont really know binnie as well as the other members but that doesn't mean i dont love him im ot8 i promise🤞

"When are you going to accept my feelings, Hyunjin-a.." Came the flirtatious words of a certain pig-rabbit. The latter braced himself for what he knew was about to happen. A well aimed plastic water bottle flew across the room and hit Casanova on his shoulder, "Ow! Okay that one was uncalled for, Ai!" The smirking maknae broke into a fit of giggles as she, once again, foiled Changbin's plan for Hyunjin's affections. Ever since Hyun and Ai had been confirmed to be dating, the interactions between the two and Changbin have become comedy gold. As previously mentioned, the rapper does any thing and everything to "flirt" with Hyunjin, from making comments, to romantic gestures, and even preventing other people, including Hyun's own girlfriend from stealing his affections. Obviously this is all a joke, Changbin would never do something so heinous, so Aiko never took is seriously and even bought into the joke. Now the three have become involved in some sort of love triangle.

Outside of fighting for Hyunjin's love, Changbin and Aiko often had small quarrels about other small things, not as much as Ai does with other members, but enough to earn a eyeroll from anyone within earshot. "I thought you had it!" "No! Chan told me you had it!" "Well obviously it's not in my hands, so why do you think I have it?!" "Guys! Arguing about it isn't going to find it!" Another day, another petty kindergarten argument. But it wasn't just a normal day, it was Hyunjin's birthday! And for the ferrets special day, Aiko and Changbin decided to pitch in and get a gift for him from the both of them. An art set that had a lot of supplies Hyunjin had been wanting for his artwork. They had both bought it and decided to give it to Channie to hold onto, because they were aware that one of them would be dumb enough to lose it. And they did.

"Hyunjin's party is in 30 minuets, what are we going to do? Show up with no gift?!" Aiko panicked, she personally didn't like it when things didn't go to plan, especially when it came to the love of her life's birthday. "Well, we'll just go out looking for it! It's not like it grew legs and walk away!" Changbin suggested, hopeful as always. "You're making it sound like that's what it did! Ugh, let's go look where Chan said he put it, it couldn't be far from there." The pair set off to the confined room, desperate to find the gift to prove who loved Hyunjin most once and for all.

While the two desperately searched, Hyunjin had already arrived. "Where's Ai and Changbin?" Hyunjin had asked, noticing the absence of his most valued admirers. "Oh! They're looking for a gi-" "They're looking for something! Don't worry, they'll be here shortly!" Han quickly hushed Chan, persistent on keeping the gift a secret. Hyunjin obviously didn't buy the act but obliged, he turned away and looked around, waiting to see what the two were doing, hoping that they weren't killing eachother in the process.

"Dammit! We're 30 minuets late looking for this cursed ass gift, we should just give up and show up fuckin' empty handed!" Aiko had enough, clearly, and her mouth spoke faster than what her brain could think. As his younger companion cursed angrily to herself in one corner of the room, Changbin searched frivolously, hoping to any God out there that he'd find this gift. Not only for himself, but for both Hyunjin and Aiko. "You don't think Chan hid it.. right?-" Aiko suspected, it was the only other explanation. "No, Chan isn't like that, there has to be another way this happened. The two sat against the wall in silent defeat, wondering what the hell they were going to do. Both had too much humility and guilt to just show up to one of their closest friend's party empty handed. As they sat in self pity, Aiko looked around and noticed pieces of paper and a few markers scattered around the nearby table, had someone.. set this up? "Oppa, I have an idea." Aiko got up to grab the paper from the table. Changbin looked over to see Ai start folding the paper the several ways. It didn't take long for Changbin to realize what she was doing, "Oh my god you're a genius! Let me get some too!" The two giggled to themselves and hurried to make their newest plan.

Downstairs, a certain birthday boy was still waiting for one of his closest friend and love of his life (though one can argue is both of them) make their way to the party that was slowly dying out. Without two of the loudest members there it was left to Han and Felix to keep up the mood. A sudden burst open of a door made everyone jump as the long awaited Dweakki-Cat duo loudly made their way to the party an hour late. "JAGI! LOOK WHAT I MADE FOR YOU! IT WAS MY IDEA!" Aiko exclaimed as she showed Hyunjin what she did, before being shoved aside by her more stronger older brother, "Nonsense! Mine are clearly more expertly crafted!- Ow!-" Changbin yelped as Aiko kicked him from below. As the two once again started they're usual banter, a fond smile was placed on Hyunjin's face, They had made him paper hearts.

©straykidsaiko

Always keep in mind that nothing in this series and in my posts are real! So anything that may seem 'out of character' should be considered as part of a fake universe! <3

ᴍᴀsᴛᴇʀʟɪsᴛ

[aspoonofsugar]

So what are your thoughts on kana now having black holes in her eyes instead of a galaxy? and did you ever think we would ever get dark kana? because i was honestly surprised aka gave her that because i thought the dark eyes will be for the hoshino's only

I had not noticed, but you are right! Her eyes do look like black holes here...

In general, I think Dark Kana is necessary for Kana to grow and I am excited about this development. As I have written here:

If Kana wants to shine, she needs to experience shadows. If she wants to have healthy bonds with others, she needs to discover and accept their darkness. She is slowly going through this process.

I talk about others' darkness, but for Kana to start exploring her own shadows makes a lot of sense:

According to Jung, the shadow is what people repress and ignore, like Kana's negative feelings towards Ruby. These emotions are not only about Ruby, though, but rather they are about Kana's own acting career. As a matter of fact Kana's whole arc is about her rediscovering her own selfishness and need to shine:

As a child, Kana shines so brightly that she dazzles everyone. Still, she has a difficult personality, so she is left behind once she grows up. As a result, she matures and learns to work well with others, even if it means she has to sacrifice her own light for everyone's sake. Both Aqua and Akane notice this and try to help her shine again, in their own ways. Still, before Kana can truly explode in a bright galaxy, she should explore her darkest self and learn about others' darkness. It is not by chance that she starts this journey by trying Akane's acting approach:

Akane acts by looking inside. She analyzes her character and empathizes with her, so that she can become a new person and play naturally every part. Basically, Akane plunges into people's shadows with no fear. Kana here is doing the same. She is stepping into Nino's darkness and by doing so she is discovering new things about herself:

This is important on multiple levels:

Psychologically, Kana is facing the heart of her trauma. She faces her feelings of jealousy, which are the result of her low self-esteem born from the belief she isn't enough.

Plot-wise, she is becoming Nino, as Ruby is becoming Ai. Considering Nino is probably involved in Ai's death, it is possible Kana's link with Nino will lead to new discoveries.

Thematically, this movie is about understanding Ai, live her story again, but change its ending. From Ai's tragedy to the twins' happy ending. Nino and Ai's relationship could never be mended, while Kana and Ruby's will. Kana is right now surrounded by darkness, but she will escape them and shine once again. She will restore her friendship with Ruby and help her.

Finally, Kana's choice to show her true feelings to Ruby makes her similar to Ai:

In the end, Kana hurting Ruby is just an attempt to love her. Even when she is showing her friend her genuine negative feelings, she is doing so to help Ruby grow. Kana who never feels loved is right now trying to show love in the wrong way. Just like Ai is a person who was never loved and could not love. Kana is wrapping herself in a lie, just like Ai did. It is just that Ai's lie was "love", while Kana's one is "hate".

Kana is currently growing as an actress because she is experiencing lies and how complex and intertwined with truth they can be. It is not pretty, but it is necessary both for her art to bloom and for her to eventually be able to see the truth about her loved ones. Ruby, Aqua and Akane. Only in this way she can go back to shine brightly for them.

On another note, I wonder if instead Akane will grow in the opposite reaction by trying a more reactive and "bright" kind of acting. I think she should as she has many pieces of information that if shared could help save Aqua.

Thank you for the ask!

[maxwellatoms]

I would love your full thoughts on the AI debate. I think it can become a very useful tool for artists but that’s my non artists opinion

A few months back, I was telling my partner how the AI-generated art at this moment in time reminds me of the works of the Surrealists. The Surrealists were big on drawing from dreams and the subconscious, and came up with a bunch of games and exercises designed to stimulate creativity by divorcing your conscious mind from the artistic process. I said that so far humanity hadn't created a conscious AI, but I wondered aloud if we hadn't created a subconscious AI. I guess that's why some of these programs have names like "Deep Dream" and "Dall-E".

My partner said, "You're so high right now." And I was. But I still think that we created something, and it's dreaming. And it's very much listening to what we're whispering in its ear.

The problem some people have with AI-generated art is that it steals art from actual living and dead human artists in order to create its works. It's considered poor taste among humans to steal someone's artwork and present it as your own. But we are allowed to collage and to nip around the edges of copyrights until we can find something we're actually allowed to do. So it seems like a grey area.

The real problem though, is that it absolutely will steal your jorb. And my jorb. I can definitely see a not-too-distant future where anyone will be able to sit down and spend a couple of days crafting their own full-length motion picture with AI assistance, and have it look as good as or better than anything we've got today. Not everyone is a storyteller, but I think it'll really open up the field for almost anyone to try. The next Stephen Spielberg could be just some sixteen year old kid on the internet, and I think that scares a lot of employed artists. Because even employed artists are just sort of barely employed.

In the end, it just sort of seems like one of those things (there are so many!) that you just can't do anything about. Studios are always looking to pinch pennies, and there's no way the biggies aren't funding research into this stuff. The really dark times will be when the studios have the tech and the public hasn't gotten its hands on it yet. Things are gonna get weird.

Artists are going to have to deal with AI the same way so many other industries will. More and more, I think it's the changes coming for society at large that people dread. We humans certainly don't seem to be very good at preparing for the inevitable.

In the short term, let it inspire you if you want. The way you might let a dream inspire you. Definitely don't claim it as your own work. Maybe every once in a while type in, "Thanks for all of the inspiration, AI. You're really cool." And then hope it remembers your kind words on Judgment Day.

🤷

[mortalityplays]

look. there is no such thing as a machine, process, algorithm, mechanism or tool that makes art. humans make art. that is the beginning and the end of it. the only reason people are comparing ai gay sex cats to duchamp is because of the way humans are reacting to it. that is the point, that is the thesis. no machine, process, algorithm, mechanism or tool can give you the ability to make art, because that ability is innate to you as a social, sensing being who exists in relation to the world. you are the defining factor.

corollary: no machine, process, algorithm, mechanism or tool is inherently unsuitable for making art. by placing anything outside the realm of art, you charge it with social tension and therefore meaningful possibility. art is a strategy for interrogating all the reasons you would want to try and place something outside the realm of art in the first place. is pornography art? as soon as you say it isn't, it can be. art is bugs bunny, you are not going to win.

process is part and parcel of art. arguing about the relevance of process is also part and parcel of art, and has been throughout human history. my mum was a sculptor before I was born. she worked in poorly ventilated studios with a lot of toxic substances and very few safety regulations. she has horrible, horrible respiratory problems now. and she made (I think) good art. was the quality of her work dependent on her freedom to breathe carcinogenic fumes and work with her bare hands? personally I don't think so, but it would take me 20 minutes on an art college campus to find someone who disagrees.

media produced using AI can be art. anything can be art. it can be good or bad, process doesn't elevate or degrade human input. right now we're seeing a lot of garbage in => garbage out from people who have never meaningfully thought about making art before in their lives. I've also seen beautiful, interesting work from people who think about it constantly, who are building and tuning their own machines and folding them into thoughtful processes.

people on all sides seem to be conflating the close interrogation of mechanisms, machines and processes with condemnation of AI as a whole. we're in a weird messy place with a promising technology that is still deeply, deeply mired in tech monopolies, user commodification and global human rights abuses, and the desire to just score points off each other without ever evolving from the conversation is making everyone involved act stupider and stupider by the day. can we please engage with the whole of the thing and stop screaming at soft targets.

[mistysblueboxstuff]

I'm really sorry people keep mistaking your art for AI art, it sucks that people can't see how much deliberation is put into your use of brush strokes and colours

So this is related but still a bit off topic, but I just saw a progress lapse (whatever it's called) of yours for the first time and I am absolutely enraptured by the way you go back in to add more detail and touches over and over again. Your work is stunning and I get so happy to see it every time it's on my feed. It's amazing to have the opportunity to see some of your method!

(In a bit of a side note (and sorry if you've answered this elsewhere before), do you have experience in traditional painting mediums like oil painting? Your process reminded me a bit of some traditional painting processes I've seen before and I was just curious as to how you went developing your style)

Sorry for the rambling, I just wanted to pop in and say your art is so beautiful and I love how deliberate it is. Being both stylised and utterly faithful to the source material. I could probably rave about it for a bit too long. You're hands down one of my favourite artists

thank you so much for such a kind message nonny! i do find it disheartening when people think my art is AI, i put so much love and thought into every piece i make, even if it's just a sketch, and to have it mistaken for something a cold soulless machine vomited out upsets me more than it probably should.

I'm happy you enjoyed the progress video! one of these days I'll make a full timelapse, I just never seem to have the time :') I don't have much experience with traditional art, and I've never tried painting with oils. I actually don't know how I've come to this method, it just sort of happened and it seemed to work for me so i stuck with it.

thank you again for being so kind, it means a lot ❤️❤️❤️