#the mod speaks

[randomitemdrop]

your opinion on ai is so refreshing. god i am so tired of 'ai good' and 'ai bad'

I appreciate that! I've seen a lot of arguments for and against and I've seen both sides make good points and bad points. Like a lot of copyright stuff, I think it's just really hard to come up with a set of rules (ethical or legal) that can apply both to the smallest indie creator and to the biggest international legacy-IP corporation.

One BIG point I forgot to mention is that with some of the generators you can actually use a specific image set instead of letting it figure sources out for itself, which bypasses a lot of the worrisome aspects of it. Check out @therobotmonster's This Toy Should Not Exist series using nothing but photos of real action figures to generate randomized yet familiar-feeling retro toys, like this guy:

[shadowvanillaweek]

We have been blessed. I never got any costumes this fast before. May you all also get them soon 🙏

If you squint this could count as a Day 5 inspiration

[incorrect-toriko-quotes]

Have you ever wondered why Toriko characters have such weird names?

Well too bad! I did. And you're gonna read about it!

MAJOR SPOILERS FOR TORIKO UP TO THE END OF THE MANGA

Some background info you need...

The Toriko world uses a mix of Japanese and English. Like... a really striking mix. It's a Japanglish world, and that's especially true of names. Lots of characters with English names turned Japanese (like Tom or Tina), characters with word/either-or names (Sani/Sunny and Coco), characters with pure Japanese names (Ichiryuu, Jirou), and the occasional complete wildcard (Zebra).

I've mentioned it offhandedly, but I'm mixed Japanese/Canadian. Toriko uses a LOT of Japanglish, especially in the names of characters, so I like to think I've got a pretty good grasp of what's going on.

HOWEVER! You all need to get a crash-course in Japanese lettering really quickly. I promise I'll keep it short.

Japanese uses 3 writing systems: Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji. Hiragana and Kanji are for Japanese-origin words (with Hiragana being an alphabet and Kanji being entire words and therefore a bit more meaningful), and Katakana being for loanwords (not just English-origin)

GOT IT? GOOD!

TORIKO & KOMATSU

Toriko (トリコ)

Toriko's name is written in Katakana, so we know it's a name originating outside of Japanese. In Japanese, the word 'toriko' means 'tri-coloured' (tri-co). NGL, this took me a while to realise because my whole life, I'd only ever used the word 'tri-co' to refer to calico cats.

Toriko (the character) has three appetite demons: Blue Demon, Ogre, and the other one. Blue Demon is, obviously, blue. Ogre is red. And the other one is white. Toriko is named 'tri-coloured' for his three appetite demons. This is also probably why Gourmet 134 misspells his name as 'Torico' on the cover.

Komatsu (小松)

This is almost hilarious. Komatsu is an incredibly common surname (yes, that's probably his surname and not his first name, but referring to people by surname is quite common in Japan). The Kanji for his name basically means 'small pine-tree'.

BUT! There's a weird niche of Japanese culinary knowledge that's probably lost on the Western viewers, that I'm here to share.

To make a LONG history short, there's an icon of New Years called the Three Friends of Winter (松竹梅). You may notice that first character is the same as the '-matsu' half of Komatsu's name. That's because the Three Friends are Pine-Tree (matsu), Bamboo (take), and Plum (ume).

Matsu. Take. Ume.

Komatsu. Ootake. Nakaume.

The Three Friends of Winter are more than just New Year decorations, though. They have culinary significance too.

The Three Friends are often used as a tier-ranking system, with Matsu being the best quality and Ume being the lowest quality. This can be (albeit somewhat archaically) used to describe ingredient/dish quality. That is to say, if you ordered a Matsu-quality dish, you'd be getting a dish made of higher-quality ingredients (and usually at a premium price) compared to Take or Ume.

Let's take a closer look at each of the three:

KOMATSU

Pine trees are evergreen and can survive some pretty tough conditions, and though exact translations vary, the Matsu generally symbolises strength and longevity in Japan. They're set up around doorways for New Years to welcome the New Year Kami into Shinto homes. Perhaps there's also some symbolism in Komatsu's persistence and strength, despite his apparent cowardice, or how he's "welcoming" new beginnings and good fortune into Toriko's life through his Food Luck.

OOTAKE

Bamboo is the fastest-growing plant in the world (and therefore a symbol of growth in Japan). And Take's character revolves around always aiming for the sky, always striving to be the best... even if he has to result to dishonest actions to achieve that. Perhaps a bit of symbolism there, too.

NAKAUME

Plum blossoms in the spring, often overshadowed by cherry. Ume often represents perseverance, spring (and rejuvenation, new life, etc). And let's be real, Nakaume goes through a lot.

So next time you remember those three little chefs and their World Chef Rankings... well... keep that in mind.

[psycho-net2000]

Some warm up/thumbnail sketches that ended up not being warm up/thumbnail sketches (that's why some little details are missing)

[asksgtnormallen]

Ah yes the banner... I forgot about this

Why in Fuckin hell is that the banner?

Erm don't worry about that Norm -Bryce (mod also uses just b)

[the-void-blob]

[Hey y’all! I just wanted to share:

I made almost everyone in gacha! These are sorta based on vibes and Picrews but if you want me to change anything or delete anything just let me know!]

[ @therealsonicexeisback @thesoulstealer @the-real-great-papyrus ]

[espresseleineweek]

Espresseleine Week starts Tomorrow!

Hello everyone! This is your last reminder about the event.

Make sure to tag your posts with #espresseleine week or send them as a submission! Happy creating :]

Link to prompts list.

For more questions refer to the pinned FAQ or shoot me an ask!

Reminder mentions:

@andirastardust @napolean-but-cringe @anartingkey @amphibifish @b0nelessdoodles @crowmakeska-boom @freckledccryptid @lemonandvanillamadeleines

[iheartpeppino]

According to ANTONBLAST, Anton's home of Boiler City is apparently in Florida. Which would make Anton a Florida man, very fitting.

I wonder where Pizza Tower takes place...? I know Peppino was originally planned to be from New York City at one point... It's definitely somewhere in the USA, right?

What's really funny to me about all of this is that I'm originally from NYC and I'm currently living in Florida...

[blood-and-pizza]

Been watching a lot of videos about Dayshift at Freddy's recently.

HOLY TANGERINES AND EGGPLANTS I AM SO OBSSESSED WITH DAVE MILLER AND JACK KENNEDY

and DR. HENRY MILLER HOLY FUCK

... IT'S SO MESSY. IT'S SO MESSY. BUT OH MY GOD. DAVE IS SO FUCKING FUNNY AND TRAGIC. JACK IS A FUCKING MESS WHETHER HE'S DEAD OR ALIVE, GOOD OR EVIL. BOTH OF THOSE ASSHOLES ARE GAY AND IN LOVE. AND HENRY MILLER IS AS MUCH OF AN INCARNATION OF PURE EVIL AS THE DEVIL.

... I've missed out on an awful lot. What kind of FNAF fan am I, honestly?

I want to play the games, but I'm so scared I'm gonna get even more obsessed and fall down a hopeless rabbit hole from which there is no escape.

[oprarepairweek]

And that's a wrap!

Thank you all so SO much for participating in the second official One Piece Rarepair Week! We got a lot of great submissions this year, I'm so grateful to everyone who contributed and participated 🥰

Didn’t get your piece done in time? No worries! We'll be checking the tag for the next few weeks to reblog any last minute entries! Make sure to tag the blog (@oprarepairweek) or just tag the event (#oprarepairweek) so we can see it.

If you have any further questions or just want to chat about your favorite rarepairs, feel free to send an ask! The inbox is open 24/7.

Again, thank you so much for joining, and hope to see you next year! 💖

[randomitemdrop]

you've posted a few ai generated images as items lately, and i'm wondering if that's intentional or not?

Short answer: no, it wasn't. Aside from a few I made when the generators first became publicly available and all the images were gooey messes, they've all been reader-submitted, although I'll admit I didn't catch the snail-boots. Personally I think AI image generators are a more nuanced situation than a lot of opinions I've seen on Tumblr, but given that they can be used so evilly, I'm steering away from them, if only to avoid the Wrath of the Disk Horse.

Long answer, and this is just my take, if you want to really get into it you'll have a much more interesting conversation with the people with devoted AI art blogs instead of me occasionally sharing things people submit:

There have been some major cases of unethical uses for it, but I think it's important to remember why AI image generators are such an issue; data scraping and regurgitating uncredited indie art is bad, but in the case of the snail-boots, it was just a fusion of one dataset of "product photos of boots" and another of "nature photos of snails", which I would say is not depriving anyone of credit or recognition for their work (MAYBE photographers, if you're a professional nature photographer or really attached to a picture you took of a snail one time?) I get the potential misuses of it, but when Photoshop made it easy to manipulate photos, the response was "hmm let's try and use this ethically" instead of "let's ban photo editing software". Like, I'd feel pretty unethical prompting it with "[character name] as illustrated by [Tumblr illustrator desperate for commissions]" or even "[character name] in DeviantArt style", but I'd have a hard time feeling bad for prompting with "product photo of a Transformer toy that turns into the Oscar Meyer Wienermobile". I know there's the question of "normalizing" the services but I think that overestimates how much the techbros running these things care about how everyday consumers use their free products, preferring to put their effort towards convincing companies to hire them to generate images for them, and in that case they respond way better to "here are some ways to change your product so that I would be willing to use it" than to "I will never use your product". For example here's one I just made of "the holy relic department at Big Lots", fusing corporate retail photos and museum storage rooms.

TL/DR: on the one hand I understand the hate that AI gets and it's not something I'm planning on using for any of my creative projects, but on the other hand I think it's overly simplistic to say it's inherently bad and should never be used ever. On the third hand, I really hate participating in arguments over complex ethical philosophy, so I'm just gonna steer clear entirely.

[shadowvanillaweek]

Thank you to everyone who has participated during the event, I'm thrilled that it became such a huge success! It's been an absolute pleasure viewing all of these posts that everyone's been submitting, despite the week being over I will still be reblogging posts regarding the event. Don't stop posting! Remember our submissions are open, so you may send your entries through that as well. Make sure to read the pinned post for more clarification. I'll look forward to the submissions!

[incorrect-toriko-quotes]

hey i dunno if i ever mentioned this Fun Blog Backstory, but i actually wrote like, 95% of the first three years of content while on a camping trip with my family. and i just... saved all the quotes to a notepad file.

anyways, it turns out the document is 96 fucking pages long.

[smellslikefeathers]

My post about that one Spamton Sweepstakes winner has 1,999 notes as of right now. Toby Fox fandom, you are insane and I love you for it <3

[justella-week]

btw to the people who suggested it on the form, modern au was already a shoe-in and i'm genuinely so stoked that everyone seems to be on the same page here

[saysomethingniceabout]

Hey all, and welcome to Say Something Nice About, a blog for fandom positivity.

Purpose:

-To encourage cheerful character discussion and appreciation.

-To compliment not only popular characters, but also minor characters, and controversial characters, too!

-To make you (and me!) approach things from a different perspective. What's something you can appreciate about a character you're not sure about?

Rules under cut-

Who/what will appear on this blog?

-Mostly characters, but perhaps games and movies too.

Can I submit characters?

- While what gets posted is ultimately up to the mod (me) you are welcome and encouraged to send asks suggesting characters/media. I'm biased towards video games and animated movies, for what it's worth.

-For now I'm not going to do any ships or real people, so keep that in mind.

How does this work?

-Basically how it sounds. I post a character/media, you reply or reblog with nice things! Analyses, compliments, comments, all welcome! Just keep it positive and appreciative!

What's not allowed?

-This should be obvious, but negativity! If you leave a negative reply, I will delete it. If you do a hateful/negativity spreading reblog, I may block you. I don't like blocking people, but I gotta keep order somehow. Sorry!

-Simpery of Questionable Nature (TM). I'm an adult. But I really, really, don't want to see you oggling over characters' woo-woos and hoo-has, or otherwise being weird about sexual stuff. So don't make me. Or I'll probably block you.

As always, The Mod is an all powerful eldritch critter who reserves the right to do literally whatever she wants. Please just note that I am trying my best.

That should be all for now, go spread some fandom joy! <3