#operation box

[poobirdy]

bingqiu boxing au feat. boxer binghe and manager shen yuan, as requested by @/rev_6_4 for svsssaction!

[tangibletechnomancy]

The reason I took interest in AI as an art medium is that I've always been interested in experimenting with novel and unconventional art media - I started incorporating power tools into a lot of my physical processes younger than most people were even allowed to breathe near them, and I took to digital art like a duck to water when it was the big, relatively new, controversial thing too, so really this just seems like the logical next step. More than that, it's exciting - it's not every day that we just invent an entirely new never-before-seen art medium! I have always been one to go fucking wild for that shit.

Which is, ironically, a huge part of why I almost reflexively recoil at how it's used in the corporate world: because the world of business, particularly the entertainment industry, has what often seems like less than zero interest in appreciating it as a novel medium.

And I often wonder how much less that would be the case - and, by extension, how much less vitriolic the discussion around it would be, and how many fewer well-meaning people would be falling for reactionary mythologies about where exactly the problems lie - if it hadn't reached the point of...at least an illusion of commercial viability, at exactly the moment it did.

See, the groundwork was laid in 2020, back during covid lockdowns, when we saw a massive spike in people relying on TV, games, books, movies, etc. to compensate for the lack of outdoor, physical, social entertainment. This was, seemingly, wonderful for the whole industry - but under late-stage capitalism, it was as much of a curse as it was a gift. When industries are run by people whose sole brain process is "line-go-up", tiny factors like "we're not going to be in lockdown forever" don't matter. CEOs got dollar signs in their eyes. Shareholders demanded not only perpetual growth, but perpetual growth at this rate or better. Even though everyone with an ounce of common sense was screaming "this is an aberration, this is not sustainable" - it didn't matter. The business bros refused to believe it. This was their new normal, they were determined to prove -

And they, predictably, failed to prove it.

So now the business bros are in a pickle. They're beholden to the shareholders to do everything within their power to maintain the infinite growth they promised, in a world with finite resources. In fact, by precedent, they're beholden to this by law. Fiduciary duty has been interpreted in court to mean that, given the choice between offering a better product and ensuring maximum returns for shareholders, the latter MUST be a higher priority; reinvesting too much in the business instead of trying to make the share value increase as much as possible, as fast as possible, can result in a lawsuit - that a board member or CEO can lose, and have lost before - because it's not acting in the best interest of shareholders. If that unsustainable explosive growth was promised forever, all the more so.

And now, 2-3-4 years on, that impossibility hangs like a sword of Damocles over the heads of these media company CEOs. The market is fully saturated; the number of new potential customers left to onboard is negligible. Some companies began trying to "solve" this "problem" by violating consumer privacy and charging per household member, which (also predictably) backfired because those of us who live in reality and not statsland were not exactly thrilled about the concept of being told we couldn't watch TV with our own families. Shareholders are getting antsy, because their (however predictably impossible) infinite lockdown-level profits...aren't coming, and someone's gotta make up for that, right? So they had already started enshittifying, making excuses for layoffs, for cutting employee pay, for duty creep, for increasing crunch, for lean-staffing, for tightening turnarounds-

And that was when we got the first iterations of AI image generation that were actually somewhat useful for things like rapid first drafts, moodboards, and conceptualizing.

Lo! A savior! It might as well have been the digital messiah to the business bros, and their eyes turned back into dollar signs. More than that, they were being promised that this...both was, and wasn't art at the same time. It was good enough for their final product, or if not it would be within a year or two, but it required no skill whatsoever to make! Soon, you could fire ALL your creatives and just have Susan from accounting write your scripts and make your concept art with all the effort that it takes to get lunch from a Star Trek replicator!

This is every bit as much bullshit as the promise of infinite lockdown-level growth, of course, but with shareholders clamoring for the money they were recklessly promised, executives are looking for anything, even the slightest glimmer of a new possibility, that just might work as a life raft from this sinking ship.

So where are we now? Well, we're exiting the "fucking around" phase and entering "finding out". According to anecdotes I've read, companies are, allegedly, already hiring prompt engineers (or "prompters" - can't give them a job title that implies there's skill or thought involved, now can we, that just might imply they deserve enough money to survive!)...and most of them not only lack the skill to manually post-process their works, but don't even know how (or perhaps aren't given access) to fully use the software they specialize in, being blissfully unaware of (or perhaps not able/allowed to use) features such as inpainting or img2img. It has been observed many times that LLMs are being used to flood once-reputable information outlets with hallucinated garbage. I can verify - as can nearly everyone who was online in the aftermath of the Glasgow Willy Wonka Dashcon Experience - that the results are often outright comically bad.

To anyone who was paying attention to anything other than please-line-go-up-faster-please-line-go-please (or buying so heavily into reactionary mythologies about why AI can be dangerous in industry that they bought the tech companies' false promises too and just thought it was a bad thing), this was entirely predictable. Unfortunately for everyone in the blast radius, common sense has never been an executive's strong suit when so much money is on the line.

Much like CGI before it, what we have here is a whole new medium that is seldom being treated as a new medium with its own unique strengths, but more often being used as a replacement for more expensive labor, no matter how bad the result may be - nor, for that matter, how unjust it may be that the labor is so much cheaper.

And it's all because of timing. It's all because it came about in the perfect moment to look like a life raft in a moment of late-stage capitalist panic. Any port in a storm, after all - even if that port is a non-Euclidean labyrinth of soggy, rotten botshit garbage.

Any port in a storm, right? ...right?

All images generated using Simple Stable, under the Code of Ethics of Are We Art Yet?

[c86]

Henshin Cyborg Operation Game

[kaiserouo]

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ability strength +0%

strength +???%

[collationn]

i think teavender and tudor would get along, though

teavender by @modcroissant

[my3rz]

this user and his boyfriend are timvan irl mayhaps?

`` User Box Request .ᐟ ,,

anything for you love <333 !!! ^_^

kisses you <3333 ^3^

[49-20-53-45-45]

[the-overthinktank]

on one hand i think the hay being made about youngsters these days using mostly tablets and phones is a little bit of a "these damn kids aren't learning to use PROPER technology, like the giant immobile expensive box that sits on a dedicated desk in your house!" moment.

on the other hand, technology is increasingly being pushed to make the giant immobile box one of the few computers you can actually meaningfully control and customize, so the average phone-exclusive user is less likely to know basic IT, because the average phone doesn't even let you look at your file directory. You know, the most basic repository of Digital Stuff. This sucks, and is not the fault of youngsters who prefer mobile touchscreens.

[oediex]

Day 76 of posting a kitten until I can foster again

"what do you mean we don't fit anymore"

[sealrock]

febhyurary, day 5: color

23rd sun of the 2nd umbral moon, 1547

my pet project with a colored aethograph, or what I like to call an 'aethochrome', with aetherically enhanced ink to capture colors. featuring my friend and classmate, elaine tatlonghari. taken early morning, with a waxing crescent moon in the background. I accidentally mixed in too much red during the process, and it gives the impression that it's still autumn. —W.J.

[themissingmango]

Celebrating the release of Drive to Survive S7 with some memorable moments + favorite quotes! 🏁🏎️💨

[thelesbiandeli]

I wish I could have ALL the lgbtq headcanons for Monty and Charlie… but, whichever ones you feel like doing are fine too

You’re my new favourite person this is exactly the ask I wanted :D

1. Sexuality headcanon

Monty- Pansexual <3

Charles- Gay

2. Gender headcanon

Monty- Trans man! 

Charles- Cis Man

3. When did you start having these hcs?

Monty- Both the Trans and Pan thing came from reading fics, so probably a month after seeing the show?

Charles- I knew he was gay the first word he said. That little giggled ‘I know’ when he meets Monty,,,,,,,, Sean gave me the easiest headcanon ever

(I would like to note that during the interval I had to pull up Ao3 to make sure I wasn’t delusional because I was SO SURE they were gonna kiss at some point)

4. Has your headcanons changed? What did you have as a hc before? 

Monty- I saw him as Gay, then as Bi, before settling on Pan 

Charles- he’s been gay from the moment I laid eyes on him <3

5. When did they realize their sexuality?

Monty- Probably during a night out, ended up in a gay bar by accident and just rolled with it. Had a crisis in the morning but oh well <3

Charles- Has the realisation while Monty has his tongue down his throat. Also had a crisis in the morning

6. If not cis, when did they realize this?

Monty- Very early into childhood, because he’s from a rich family his parents did the thing of ‘our daughter? She died of influenza, very sad very sad. On another note, I don’t think you’ve met our other son, Ewen. He’s been staying with family abroad, but he’s back home now :)’

7. Has there been some early signs in their childhood? 

Monty- Had a shoebox of pictures of men ‘for research’, and definitely had many magazines that were not age appropriate 

Charles- never considered that he may be gay, but was bullied by most the boys he knew and wasn’t interested in the girls so he hung out with his sisters and researched animals he liked instead of talking to people

8. Did someone else know before they knew themselves? 

Monty- Ivor and probably some of the men at MI5 knew before he did (watching him go after every man he found hot at a bar was a hint) but only Ivor really thought about it properly

Charles- most of the Mincemeat team figure it out before him (he ignores it for AGES then the realisation hits him like a truck)

9. Who did they come out to first? 

Monty- Probably Ivor (who used all of his efforts not to go ‘no shit’ in return)

Charles- Either his sister (Victoria), who hugged him and sat with him all evening (she knows how much internalised homophobia he’s full of)(it’s the 1940s and self loathing is my favourite thing to give to a character) or Jean (explained in the next question)

10. Was there anyone they “accidentally” came out to? (they just casually mentioned it and forgot the other didn’t know, or someone overheard when they said it)

(Both of them accidentally came out to Jean to me. She’s so fed up with these two)

Monty- came out to Jean on one of their nights out (either getting receipts for Bill or while she’s trying to get information out of him). He got really drunk and ended up babbling about how he wished Charlie was there too

Charles- Got in a massive argument with Jean just after she gets kicked off the team where she goes ‘god, how can you even STAND him, he’s arrogant and selfish and a narcissistic asshole-‘ and Charles yells ‘BECAUSE I LOVE HIM’ and they just stand there in silence while they both stand in shock about what he’s just said

11. The easiest person to come out to?

Monty- Ivor (can you tell that I love them being brothers)

Charles- ????? Honestly idk (I can’t imagine a scenario where it’s easy for him)

12. The hardest person to come out to?

Monty- His parents :D (they’re not happy with it but they’re supportive in the way of putting a lot of money and effort into keeping it under wraps as to not ruin their social standing. Monty has thousands of pounds worth of perfectly tailored suits)

Charles- Himself :)

13. Someone they never came out to?

Monty- the rest of the lads at MI5. None of them talk about ‘personal’ stuff (which also means they don’t pry when one of them runs off with someone they ‘shouldn’t’)

Charles- His mother!! (I’m torn because I always imagined him living alone with his mother, but I recently learned that he was likely living in an apartment with his cool as fuck lesbian sister, so I’m still deciding)

14. Do they have an LGBTQ+ role model? (could either be a celeb or a person they know personally that they look up to)

Monty- He’s got this idealised version of himself that he’s been creating in his head since he was 10 that he desperately wants to be

Charles- also Monty

15. What is their favorite queer movie?

Monty- if asked he would say Brokeback Mountain, but it’s actually But I’m A Cheerleader

Charles- The Half of It (he would love a partner who’s an intellectual equal like Ellie and Aster are, but unfortunately he’s attracted to Ewen Montagu instead)

(Can you tell I mainly watch lesbian films)

17. How good of a gaydar do they have?

Monty- it’s not that he has a good Gaydar, he’s just a magnet for queer people

Charles- Average Gaydar, but overthinks it too much to be sure

18. Another sexuality headcanon you think can make sense for them?

Charles- I feel like AroAce Charles (specifically George!Charles because I get the Vibes off him) would be so fun because of all of his eye rolls and being fed up at Monty’s flirting with Jean

19. Another gender headcanon you think can make sense for them? 

Monty- well Cis man seems obvious but eeeh

Charles- I feel like you could fit a decent amount of gender fuckery into him but I cba lol

20. What would they wear at a pride parade?

(I’m taking this to mean in a modern au sense)

Monty- Modern au Monty would be an absolute peacock of a man, would go all out with a mesh shirt and body paint, and his outfits would correspond with various pride flags

Charles- as much as I love David’s extravagant slutty outfits, I think Charlie would be into some subtle rainbow button ups or Hawaiian shirts. Someone would hand him a flag too. He would have a great time for about an hour then leave because the crowd stressed him out <3

Thank you so much for this ask!! Literally the dream question for when I’m being especially insane about this show rn

[nyehilismwriting]

saw this ask on another if and thought it was interesting: how does the cast feel about casual nudity?

nash is pretty used to it - they and the operative have spent a lot of time in tight quarters and cramped conditions, so neither of them bat an eye at things like getting changed in front of each other. the instant you draw attention to it or the situation becomes charges the repression kicks in and they'll have to leave the room, though.

rohan is definitely less chill about it; xe's much more used to privacy, and more...shall we say, uptight company, so its never become a thing in xir life. if xe's getting naked in front of someone, it's for a purpose.

leanna is....fairly normal. five out of ten. would be a bit embarrassed if you walked in on her naked, not too concerned about getting changed in front of her friends. she is nosy and she will look if you get naked in front of her regardless of romance.

ki-ha's attitude depends quite heavily on the relationship; he wouldn't bat an eyelid at a close friend walking around naked, but a rivalry op doing it is likely to get snapped at. from a practical perspective, he's not bothered; he understands close quarters, shared rooms, and will do his best to give you privacy in that situation. however he's not likely to indulge in any casual nudity himself, really ever, even around a partner.

and rhaxa and imxa are already nakey:-) rhaxa prefers to wear body paint and things that they dont have access to rn, but that's more akin to makeup than clothing.

[buttl0rd]

I think Cartman would be so used to his eyes that he forgets other people don't see heterochromia often. So when he meets someone new he doesn't understand why they keep staring at his eyes

pov ur the new kid and u think cartman has cool eyes

[my3rz]

Hey! Can you do one for someone who really loves Tim Wright? :3

`` User Box Request .ᐟ ,,

sure i can !! ^_^

art creds: @adaki on tumblr

i hope you enjoy !! ^_^

[swan2swan]

Every time Soyona pulls off a successful operation in a certain location, she purchases a gift from the place she visits (usually a blend of local coffee, if she can), wraps it in a blue ribbon, and sends it to Brooklynn's place of residence with a handwritten note along the lines of "Hope to see you next time".