#this goes without saying but if any of my art is stolen in any way i will stomp you to death with my hooves

[dilemmaontwolegs]

hello gorgeous, I love your imagination that you put into words. I expecially like your works on daniel&gasly (maybe because they're my favorite drivers). I saw that requests are closed and you're going under the knife (hope it goes well!) but if by any chance you want/have time to write this I'll be happy. Will be pleased with whatever you choose to do with this request.

The reader is a very normal, ordinary person. Rents a flat, has a job, meets with her friends form time to time. Nothing much. Somehow hers and the drivers paths cross. He immediately falls in love with her, she feels the attraction but after one weekend with him she understands that they're too different and it certainly won't work. So he's trying to persuade her to give them a try and she always runs away when her feelings instead of brain start to win. During intimate moments she starts to make awful jokes or act like a child, everything to not let the passion take over and the driver notices that and the seducing begins.

Would love this with dan or pierre but it's up to you.

Have a lovely day! 😊

P.S: Sorry for my English, it's not my 1st language

Romantic at Heart || DR3

Pairing: Daniel Ricciardo x fem!reader Warnings: none really, smut implied WC: 2.3k

F1 Masterlist

You should have been heading straight home, just like you had promised the girls after a Friday night out, but the lights had stolen your attention. At first you thought it was a firefly, a single orange glowing tail on the brick wall. Then you spotted another, but it was blue. Then one by one you noticed them dotted along the wall, all the colours of the rainbow leading the way to the riverbank in the opposite direction to your apartment. 

Curiosity had you following the path of tiny LED lights, wondering what it might lead to. The distance between each beacon grew closer until they became clusters, like little galaxies of constellations you could wish upon. A small laugh bubbled up as you skipped along to the next one with childlike excitement, so engrossed in what you were looking at that you didn’t see where you were going.

“Oh, sorry!” you apologised as you bumped into a man, his hands scrambling to catch his camera before it could hit the pavement. “Sorry, I was distracted. Is your camera okay?”

The man had recovered it without incident and smiled as he held it up. “Mind if I check?”

“Check what?” you asked as he raised it to his eye, the lens pointed in your direction.

“If it still works. Smile!”

You laughed at the man’s confidence and you heard the shutter snap the photo before he looked at the display. “Wow, that’s perfect,” he praised, waving you over. “Come look.”

You stepped closer to the man, feeling a sense of recognition though you were certain you hadn’t met him before. He angled the camera so you could see what he had captured and your lips parted in surprise. You couldn’t understand how he had managed to take a simple photo but make it art. 

The smile on your face was pure joy, and the lights behind you had distorted under the exposure and contrast to create a halo around your head. 

“You look like an angel.”

“Oh my god,” you whispered in amazement, wishing you could have a copy for yourself. 

“God?” he chuckled as he held a hand out. “Nah, you can just call me Daniel.”

You shook his hand with a laugh, feeling like it was a sound he was used to hearing from everyone he spoke to, and gave him your name in return. 

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Daniel started to say and you immediately began to shift uncomfortably on your feet, “but you’re beautiful, and it’s late, what are you doing out on your own?”

“Oh, I was out with my girlfriends and on my way home when I saw these and I kind of, had to, follow them…?” you trailed off and looked back at the dark path you had wandered down, less and less lights illuminating the way home. “I guess I should be going.”

Daniel followed your gaze to the darker end of the road and hated the thought of you walking it alone. Shoving his camera into his hoodie pocket, he offered his elbow. “Care for some company on this fine evening? My mother would throttle me if she knew I let a lady walk home alone at this hour.”

You chewed your lip as you debated his offer. “Are you a serial killer?”

“Only at breakfast.” You took a sudden step back and he screwed his eyes shut as he berated himself. “Sorry, sorry, terrible joke. Terrible timing. I meant Cereal Killer…because I eat cereal for breakfast…I’m sorry.”

“That is not funny,” you said despite laughing. “I watch way too many Netflix shows for that.”

His head tilted to the side and caught the colours of the leds around you as curiosity filled his playful smile. “Have you seen that Formula One show on there?”

Your nose wrinkled at the idea and shook your head. “Sports isn’t really my thing.” Trusting your gut that he was safe enough, you looped your arm in his and set off down the road. 

“Then what is your thing?”

“Books,” you admitted, suddenly shy though you had no reason to be. “My friends actually refer to my apartment as ‘the library’. If I didn’t have to work to buy more books I don’t think anyone would see me again, I would just hole up and read.”

“There’s worse ways to spend your time,” he joked with a grin you were starting to think was perpetually painted on his face.

“Yeah, I could watch Formula one.” His smile faded and his laugh puttered out, making you instantly regret the joke. “I can hardly make fun of your thing when I’ve told you mine.”

“I don’t actually watch F1,” he admitted as he stopped walking and you turned to face him. “I’m too busy racing.”

“Racing what?” 

He blinked a few times and his lip twitched with a smile when he realised you were genuinely confused. “I race cars…in F1…for McLaren.”

You waited for the punchline to come but for the first time since meeting him, he was serious. “Oh, oh! Okay…wow. I guess that’s why I felt like I recognised you, I must have seen you somewhere. God, I feel stupid.” You laughed to yourself and sighed, whispering under your breath, “you’ve been reading too much romance.”

“You’re not stupid,” Daniel said quietly. “I feel it too.”

Your laugh was an unladylike snort of disbelief. “Don’t be silly, you don’t even know me. You don’t even know my last name or what I do for work.”

“But I want to, if you’ll give me the time to learn. Not that it matters what your job is, you aren’t your work.”

“What if I’m an escort?”

“Are you an escort?”

“Would it matter?” 

He was momentarily stunned and you saw him worrying his bottom lip and he thought of an appropriate answer. 

“I’m not, but obviously it would matter,” you clarified as you turned and started your walk again. “I’m an admin assistant, not an escort, just so you know.”

“Not a librarian?” 

You smiled as you tipped your head back to the starry night. “A girl can dream, but they aren’t positions that tend to come up very often. Even less with everything going digital.”

“You could open your own library, you already have the books apparently.” 

You hadn’t realised how far you had walked until you stopped outside your apartment complex. It had been easy to get lost in the conversation with him and you almost continued walking just so the evening didn’t come to an end. 

“Apparently?” you giggled as he opened the front door for you. “Do I have to prove it to you?”

He followed you to the elevator and leaned against the wall. “Is that you inviting me up?”

It was daring and absolutely unlike you but when you looked into his eyes you knew you wanted to see more of them so you found yourself asking, “Would you say yes?”

His smile grew as he reached for the elevator button in response and hit it.

Monday morning rolled around too soon and you struggled to pull yourself out of bed to get ready for work. Daniel’s back was to you as he hugged his pillow, one arm hanging over the edge of the bed, and you saw the slightly raised marks of your nails over his tan skin. 

The weekend had been better than any of the fictional tales that filled the rooms in your house. You hadn’t even left the apartment, too engrossed in each other's company to face the outside world. But that would change as you climbed out of bed and started your usual Monday morning routine. 

“Good morning, angel,” Daniel greeted sweetly as he snuck up behind you and kissed your cheek. 

You held up the piece of toast you were eating and let him take a bite for himself. “Can I have your number?” he asked after finishing his mouthful and watching you dart around the small kitchen, packing a little lunch to take to work.

“For what?”

“So I can give it to telemarketers,” he joked as he caught you around the waist. “No, so I can call you.”

“This weekend has been…magical, but you’re a famous race car driver, and I’m, well, just me,” you said softly. “I’m under no illusion about how this ends, Daniel, we live in two different worlds.”

“That’s just a cop out,” he argued, picking up your phone and calling himself so he had your number. “I’m going to prove you wrong.” 

Three Weeks Later “Daniel’s here to see you.” You looked up from your computer to double check Jess was talking to you and found her grinning like a fool. “I can’t believe he’s actually here.”

“Who?”

Jess reached for the half empty cup of coffee she had made you and sniffed it. “Did I give you decaf? Girl, wake up! You don’t keep a man like that waiting. The PA’s are already sniffing around him.”

Pushing your chair back, you rose at the threat of the PA’s who loved to dote upon any man who had a seven figure salary. Two of the glorified assistants longed to be on Love Island and their entire personality could fit in the extremely large breasts their ex-bosses had paid for - right before the sexual harassment charges were filed. Yeah, you weren’t going to leave Daniel to fend for himself.

Leaving the back offices, you followed the scent of knock-off Marc Jacobs to the reception area where Daniel smiled and joked with the small crowd surrounding him. You were once again struck by how different your lives were, his in the spotlight and yours anything but. It was only as you moved closer that you saw how the smile didn’t reach the creases around his eyes and heard the laugh that didn’t come from deep in his belly. 

“Alright, ladies,” you interrupted the group with a wave of your hands, “thank you for keeping Daniel company, I’ll take it from here.”

A few overly keen females pouted as they stepped away and Daniel cast a grateful smile to you before pulling out the gift he had hidden behind his back. It took a second to realise why the bouquet of roses looked strange but then the confused frown was replaced with a smile as you accepted it. Every rose was made of origami, carefully folded and shaped into the blossom and you quickly recognised the lines of Pride and Prejudice, arguably the greatest romance novel of all time.

“What are you doing here?” you asked as you held the meaningful bouquet to your chest. 

Daniel was all too aware of your curious co-workers still hanging around the area and dipped his head closer to yours. “There’s this angel I’ve been missing, and I just needed to see her again.”

The gesture, the words, it all made your heart skip a beat but you quashed the feelings that arose with it. “That is stalking.”

His laugh was genuine and your smile grew when you saw his reach his eyes as he corrected you, “That is romantic.”

“Thank you,” you whispered as you sniffed the paper roses. “Did you spray these with your cologne?”

“The book came from a secondhand store and it smelt like mothballs, which wasn’t the vibe I was going for. I think I smell better than mothballs.”

“Wait, you made these!” Surprise floored you as you looked at them with a new appreciation. 

“With a little help and a lot of youtube,” he grinned proudly. “I would have come sooner but it took three weeks to make them all.”

The effort he made brought tears to your eyes and you hurried to blink them away. The man was absolutely relentless in his belief that the connection between you could become something more, but you still struggled to accept it. It wasn’t because you weren’t attracted to him, no that had been instant from the moment you met, you just didn’t understand how someone as famous as him could settle for someone as plain as you.

“Surely you have better things to do with your time,” you said after swallowing the lump in your throat.

“Than thinking of ways to win your heart? No way. So…can I please take you out on a date?”

Your eyes traced the roses, scanning the lines from the pages of one of your favourite books. I am happier even than Jane; she only smiles, I laugh. Daniel made you laugh, he could always make you laugh. The late night phone calls that interrupted your reading time replaced the silence in the apartment with the sound of your laughter. But would it be enough to close the distance between your worlds?

Your eyes followed another petal and felt it resonate within: Her heart did whisper that he had done it for her.

“One date,” you said as you tore your eyes away from the flowers that only seemed to call to you more, begging to find more sweet sentences among the folds. “And nowhere public. I want to actually be able to talk with you, not get swarmed by fans.”

“I can do that,” he said with a wide grin before kissing your cheek. “I’ll see you tonight.”

He started to leave but he stopped as you softly called his name, looking over his shoulder from the doorway.

“Thank you for these, Daniel. No one’s ever done anything so sweet.”

“It’s just the beginning, angel,” he winked, disappearing out the door as you hid your face in the flowers that smelt just like him.

Crap, you sighed to yourself. He was worming his way into your heart, just like he planned.

[vmpiires]

ok i got one. gojo fucking y/n until her brain doesn’t practically work / until her brain goes to mush 💯💯💪🏾💪🏾

𝐆𝐎𝐉𝐎 𝐒𝐀𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐔

„𝐒𝐀𝐘 𝐌𝐘 𝐍𝐀𝐌𝐄”

: ̗̀➛ 18+ CONTENT!!!

: ̗̀➛ afab!reader, light sex, praising, proofread so i apologize in advance for any mistakes if they’re made.

: ̗̀➛ art creds by;; currently unknown. dividers are not mine, if you own these, you may claim them in comments.

: ̗̀➛ WORD COUNT;; 936

* dark mode recommended

* do not copy this plot. i’m perfectly fine with inspirations but give creds. if this plot his stolen in any way, the post will be taken down and you will be blocked.

𝐃𝐀𝐊𝐎𝐓𝐀𝐒 𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐄𝐒 ✉️🖇️;; wrote this up in class. i hope ya likeeee. reblog to support meeeee and if you want more :D

destiny’s child’s song “say my name” was playing loudly off your spotify playlist on your tv as you brushed your hair. your hair was dry after you washed it and did your hair care routine. you’d put some oil in your hair for extra moisture and continue to brush it from the ends going up to your scalp.

“heyyyy, i love this song.” you heard gojo say as he entered your room. you could hear him singing along with the song. his goofiness made you smile and it always made your day when you were upset.

you turn around to him, “i didn’t know you liked this song,” you giggle. gojo nodded, having a big goofy grin on his face.

“yeahh, i love your music taste…uh..some of it,” he chuckled. it was true, gojo loved the songs you played. whether it was some violent gang banging music or something soft like chris brown or any 80s-90s rnb songs, he was always down to test the waters of your music.

“hey, hurry up and finish your hair, i wanna cuddle.” gojo stated as he began taking off his shirt. the male was out with his best friend, geto, doing some work and fighting off any spirits they might’ve encountered during that time. you couldn’t blame him for being tired.

you finish with your hair and put a bonnet on your head so it could be protected while you relaxed with gojo in bed and turned off your music, putting on a random movie to play on netflix. you lie down beside your icy haired boyfriend and he immediately puts his arms around you, holding you tightly.

gojo starts kissing your shoulder, slightly distracting you from the movie that you were watching. you didn’t know what was happening but you were interested in the film sort of. it wasn’t long until gojo was on top of you, kissing you all over.

“i thought you said you wanted to cuddle,” you interject, making gojo stop and smirk at you. when he made that face, you knew what he was up to and you weren’t opposed to his actions so you let him continue.

sexual interaction with gojo was sort of funny because he was always making jokes with you while he was forcing his dick in your guts, which made you stop laughing at him. you had a feeling he’d do that again.

tonight was different. gojo was prepping you, sticking his face in your wetness. you could feel the tip of his nose tickling your cunt while his tongue circled your folds then plunged down into you, sucking and slurping your fluids.

you put your hand down on his head and gripped his snow white hair. your hips bucked into his face before gojo would push his hands down against your hips, forcing you to stop your movement.

your moans were motivating him to move faster. he’d lift his head only to spit on your womanhood and continue to lick you until you were clean and ready for him, just so he could ruin you all over again. once he finished with that, he’d remove his boxers and stuff his length inside you without warning, making you yelp.

gojo laughed, “did i surprise you? or did it hurt?” he asked, still having that smile on his face even though his face was covered in your fluids. he didn’t even bother wiping it off. he liked the feeling of your mess coating his skin like a face mask. now he wanted to feel everything. and he wanted you to feel it too.

you shake your head, “you just didn’t give me a warning, that’s all.” you managed to get out between all of your moaning and groaning. trying your hardest to not turn into a moaning mess. but he’d do it to you anyway.

while the unknown movie played on your tv, gojo was pounding into you, showing no signs of stopping. he put his head down into the crook of your neck, kissing it. his kisses turned into bites while simultaneously sucking your skin to create a hickey.

“what’s my name, princess?” you heard gojo ask. you were so drunk off pleasure that you completely forgot what was going on. you forgot where you were. your mind completely blank. the only thing on your mind was gojo and how he was making you feel.

“gojo,” you moan. he’d pick up his speed, wanting to see his bulge through your stomach as he pounded you into the bed. you felt like your were sinking down into the mattress because of the position he was holding you in.

“sorry, i didn’t exactly hear what you said.” gojo chuckled before he let out a long and deep groan. he would continue to slam into you until he heard his name filling the room countless times.

he was fucking you dumb. you felt like a mindless zombie that only knew one word. one name. you were drooling all over yourself as your mouth hung open and your head leaning back against the headboard of your bed.

“is that all you know how to say?” gojo teased. you couldn’t even say anything to counter her statement. you were lost in another world. a place you couldn’t even comprehend.

before you knew it, you were making another mess for him. you let out a contempt sigh when the two of you finish. you felt exhausted but you felt like you wanted another round at the same time.

“okay, now we can cuddle.” gojo beamed, smiling at you, laying his head down on you.

𝐄𝐍𝐃.

⋆｡࿇ ·࣭࣪̇˖ 𖦹°༅༚

[ot3]

ok i think you have really good, reasonable, down-to-earth takes across the board, but your ai perspective is genuinely very confusing to me and i would love your help in understanding. especially wrt your last post. to reiterate: you are saying that people who hate ai art should also hate game consoles and off-season produce, and that hating ai art betrays a hypocritical attitude toward what forms of labour deserve protection and value? if i have this wrong please correct me!

if i have that write, then if i can ask in good faith: how is it that ai art generators can be seen as equivalent to gaming consoles and off-season produce? do you mean from a tech perspective or a labour perspective? i understand neither. gaming consoles are machines - designed and made by humans - designed to run games - games that were made by (typically) huge human labour forces and artists and writers and designers. off-season produce is able to be grown thanks to technology - but still has to be grown and watered and harvested by human labour. midjourney is a computer program, admittedly designed by people, yes, that then goes and autonomously scrapes data off the internet (“data” here being art and photography created by humans) to then autonomously spit own a hashed together image when prompted. without appropriate compensation for the people whose art and photography has been included in such a dataset, i do not see how they might count as similar to the greenhouse farmers or console designers. i am sincerely clueless as to how something like midjourney entails equivalent labour worthy of equivalent protection as items made or grown by hand, or how disliking ai art, and feeling uncertain about what it might mean for human labour the future, is hypocrisy. are you able to clarify any of this?

i'm not saying that people who hate ai should also hate video game consoles or out of season fruit. im saying that people who look at ai and see something that is fundamentally incapable of being interesting or enjoyable because it existing involved stealing the labor of Creatives seem not to care as much about the labor theft that goes into providing them with other luxury goods. i picked out game consoles and out of season fruit as my specific examples here because they're things people could easily choose to live without.

without appropriate compensation for the people whose art and photography has been included in such a dataset, i do not see how they might count as similar to the greenhouse farmers or console designers.

this is the part where we're not quite on the same page, i believe. the point i was trying to make is that the people who are responsible for making your consoles and for making sure your grocery store has produce are not adequately compensated either. they just aren't. i'm not talking about engineers who design consoles or people running greenhouses, i'm talking about miners, factory workers, and agricultural laborers.

the metals for your console were mined by someone whose labor is exploited. the console was assembled by people whose labor was exploited. the fruit from the greenhouse was planted by someone whose labor was exploited, tended to by someone whose labor was exploited, and then harvested by someone whose labor was exploited.

i don't think there's anything wrong with disliking ai art or feeling unsure about where it leaves human artists. i think that's a completely natural way to react to it. i think discussing AI image generation as if the lack of compensation in the labor necessary to develop it makes it uniquely exploitative, thereby putting all AI image generation off limits to everyone forever, means people don't spend enough time thinking about the stolen labor that goes in to making the rest of their life possible.

[insanitybl00m]

Art rant. I’m mad. Ignore if you want but I’m making this because I think it’s important.

I keep seeing this shit and it’s making me pissed off so here I am.

I keep seeing people reposting other people’s art onto other platforms (most of the time without credit and when it is credited typically it’s due to a watermark.)

I’ve seen this on A LOT on Pinterest (which I use mainly for drawing references and writing stuff).

People will never credit the artist. Never. I’m going to get niche here for a second but specifically in the Pissa/deathduo and overarching QSMP community.

It’s not even something that can be easily reported and taken down. It’s an act of respect for the artist. If you like a work so much you want to go through the effort of reposting it then CREDIT THE PERSON. And if they say explicitly they do not want their art reposted. DONT REPOST IT.

Look there are other ways to draw attention to cool art from other platforms. “Look at this amazing art I found” and then drop the link. (Even this should come with precautions because don’t click any link you see on the internet. Like remember the internet safety shit that’s drilled into your head).

AND SOME OF THEM HAVE THE AUDACITY TO TURN OFF COMMENTS. (Ik specifically Pinterest has weird features where you have to opt in to comments but still I think it’s fucking rude to not even let someone point out that you are technically stealing art.)

I just have to say it’s horrible.

Credit artists if they are ok with their art being reposted. End of the day don’t do that shit.

Don’t be the reason people have to watermark their art. Don’t be the reason people stop sharing their art. Don’t be the reason why someone stops drawing because they aren’t even going to get credit for the hours that goes into making art.

At the end of the day it is theft. You are stealing someone else’s art. Yeah sure you won’t face prison time over it but shouldn’t you have morals?? Shouldn’t you want to be a good person who respects others??

I’m tired of going onto Pinterest to find a drawing reference and seeing people’s art getting stolen. Especially people I follow within my community.

It’s not just one person reposting either. If it was one person they could easily be blocked and reported but no, people in general just aren’t respecting the artists.

People who make art, write fics, create theories; they are the backbone of a community. When you start to chip away at their motivation to keep creating you are hurting the community itself.

This has gotten long and I’m still pissed but I’m rambling at this point.

[ponderingmoonlight]

Since I was bombarded with anon statements about me using AI again, I'll say it here on last time: I see and understand where artist come from, I get the frustration over "artists" claiming AI work as their own, selling those pics and getting quite some fame for it.

But accusing me of stealing because I let an AI software turn me and readers into jjk or demon slayer style pictures is a little insane, don't you think? Especially advicing me to just use pictures on Pinterest or out of the manga. I don't want to hurt or trigger someone, but isn't that exactly what stealing is out of your context as well? Isn't using screenshots of jjk anime or manga "stealing" as well? And don't get me started on using random pics on Pinterest where you simply can't find out who's the original artist anymore. The argument that AI gets feeded countless pics on the internet and consumes artists hard work in the process sounds absolutely depressing and I'd be pissed as well.

But when I thought about it more...When putting your stuff on the internet, you deliver it to basically the whole earth. Damn, even my fics were found on some Russian site translated and without stating I was the one writing it. I get the frustration, I get the hate! But at the same time I feel like you aren't im charge for what happens on the internet anymore. As soon as you publish your stuff on literally ANY site (since all of them are collecting your data like Thanos anyway), it will get feeded into that system. Who knows how many of my countless essays already landed in there and are a part of someone's work? Who knows how many phrases of my fics I would be able to find when searching with ChatGPT? This isn't talking your concerns down or explaining myself, but rather showing that it's literally ANY artist out there getting affected by AI. You could just search for a fic with Gojo and boom, ChatGPT delivers way faster than me.

But why are you still here, then? Because NOTHING compares to original art!

Like I said over and over, I'd love to collab with artists. But much to my understanding, a lot of them work for MONEY and since my content is FREE, I'm simply not able to pay for the sheer presentation. Also, when looking at my blog, you'll see that I'm using like 70% of anime screenshots by now.

Let me take this opportunity to ask: are you even familar with how generating pictures with the help of AI even works? To make it short, the ML algorithms get "trained" with a huge ammount of training data (we are talking about like 1 billion pics here, depending on the AI). Yes, that data is sourced from the internet. Yes, that data will most likely include the content of artists on the internet without consent (which isn't fair). BUT that art doesn't find direct use in the later generated pics. It rather helps training the algorithms in order to "learn" aspects and characteristics of the imagine in correlation to the picture you want to translate into a certrain art style (like in my chase) or based on the described properties that the image should have (e.g. Bing AI). To translate that: You don't type in "blonde girl with blue eyes" and the AI just shows you a stolen picture online that fits into that description but generates its own version of it based on the pictures it got trained with before. Of course, it surely depends on the AI you're using and it is your responsibility as a consumer to think about ethical correctness here. But same goes for the people simply hating on me over the fact that I'm using AI and accusing me of stealing while this is definetely not the chase.

I won't change my blog because of you, I will continue putting a pic here and there into a fic because not only I find it cute from time to time, but the people who request are thankful more than once because I'm able to make "their" fic feel a little more personal. I get this is controversial and that some people won't feel comfortable on this blog because of it, which is sad but life. I can't even count how many times I've got rude messages because the jjk screenshots I've took myself out of the anime are someone else's artwork, because the manga panels are also artwork and I'm stealing them for my own content. I feel like I'm always in the wrong here, so I'll continue what I'm doing and what makes me happy.

Also, let me get this straight: I'm a writer who uses AI generated pics from time to time in order to spice up a cover and you're able to see that in the very first entry on my blog. It's really not that deep over here.

Every coward anon rambling in my inbox regarding this topic will be blocked and deleted.

Have a nice day everyone

[maze-of-my-design]

Tell me your favourite things about the p5 cast !!! :D

(HI THIS WAS FOR THAT ONE POSITIVITY ASK GAME SRY I FORGOT)

This got really long so it goes under the cut but people should read this may b it took like 50 mins to type out please

Ren: He literally LOVES HIS FRIENDS it's so insane like HE CAN IMAGINE MARRYONG ANY OF THEM even if it's a joke he can see himself married to his friends and he denies godhood for them and for everyone. He gets beaten up and thrown around by cops for his friends. I don't think he'd ever accept the false reality in 3rd Sem because he loves his friends so much and if he gave them agency once he will do it 100 times over.

Morgana: kitty kat :3 I like how he learns to put his ego aside throughout the story and accepts the fact that he Does need the thieves. I love the scene where he admits that the PTs are his place to belong. He's such a hardass for most of the game but really he's just a little guy. "tch, whatever, you guys are the only idiots who wanna keep me around! You'd be nothing without me. Now let's go get a celebration dinner we need refreshments"

Ryuji: HE'S SO SWEET AND KIND!!! HE LOVES HIS MOM!! HE'S A TRUE PUNK!!! he's the coolest mf the thieves have around he's legit THE reason the thieves exist in the first place. If it wasn't for him yelling out Kamoshida's codewords no one would've met eachother. He's willing to put himself on the line for his friends because he CARES he cares about everyone. He's not Ren's kind of selfless but he's his OWN kinda selfless and I love him for it.

Ann: She's literally just a girl. Just a girl in the world. She's so sweet with her friends and even if she hesitates a lil to say it out loud, she demonstrates it. She loves people so strongly that it saves them. She's headstrong and badass, and despite it all she wants to reclaim what was stolen from her. Sure, Atlus fumbled the bag with her writing, but her wish to take back her femininity and use it as her weapon? So real. Ann I love you so much

Yusuke: MY GUY!!!!!! Unironically, I love how weird he is. That's the face of a guy who is unafraid to be himself. Granted, all the thieves learn to be so, but him? He's literally called weird and eccentric, sometimes to his face, but he just keeps at it! He loves the arts, he loves the world, he is so in love with Life and the people in it he wants to capture it all on paper. He's curtsy, he's flamboyant, he's eccentric, he's weird, and he wears it all with a badge of honour. He's also so pretty like have you SEEN him

Makoto: I really like how she breaks free from those she used to please. Her awakening is one of the most cathartic of the game for this reason. Her biker outfit is fantastic for her, it's legit the coolest fucking thing. BUT ALSO! As an ex-people-pleaser myself, learning and internalizing the fact that you owe Nothing to no one at all does feel like that yk? "Makoto the sycophant is gone" is a raw fucking line for her and I love it. She isn't my favourite, but god damn it she's a certified Cool Cat

Futaba: HER. God where do I begin. Her quick wit, her intelligence, her hacking prowess. Her palace resonates with me a lot (I mean, who wouldn't in this day and age?). Being so deep in a hole that you doom yourself to die in it because you think you deserve it. But the way she handles it? Even if the thieves did part of the work (at her behest), ultimately SHE'S the one in power. SHE'S the one in control. And the way she learns that? WHEN she learns that? The whole conversation with her shadow before the bossfight is so fucking cool. The way she feels indignated, her shadow telling her to, indeed, Be Fucking Upset that these nobodies treated her like crap, validates her anger, and just. "No matter what you say to me, I will LIVE!" is probably my favourite line from the whole game hands down. It means a lot to me, Futaba herself means a lot to me, I love her, I admire her, she's so awesome

Haru: HER REBELLION!!!! The way she stands up to her dad is so amazing. I wish the game had given her the spotlight before the bossfight, but what we got was so good (if insufficient) I loved it. Important to mention, also, the fact that she uses her kindness as her weapon. Have you seen how she treats Akechi? She's respectful, curt, she's one of the first to say he should join them in the fight against Shido. She may hate him, but she remains calm. She remains kind. Akechi probably thinks she hates him and should, thus, treat him wrongly. But no, she is kind. Anyway Akechi aside I love her PT aesthetic she's fuckin ROCKING that hat with the vulture feather. I love her.

Akechi: he's so well written that as much as I want to hate him i cannot. His writing dude. He's made me cry. He's made me want to rip my screen apart. He's such a character. I love how his desire for freedom overtakes so much of the narrative. Think about it: he goes along with the Hitman business, with the murders, with shooting Okumura, with shooting his rival best friend Ren, all because he wants to be FREE. He wanted his MOTHER to be free, or whatever remained of her. He wanted to avenge her, to avenge himself, even if it meant dying he, wanted to have Something for himself. He wanted to, for the first time in years, make a Choice. A choice that Mattered. These ideals, while selfish in execution, are what makes him murder, attempt to murder, and refuse the fake reality in the third semester. Fuck being happy, he wants to be Free.

SUMIRE: oh my god. Ohhh Jesus fuck. Ohhhh. My god. Oghf god. I know I'll write a manuscript for just her but I WISH i finished royal myself. I've avoided as much dialogue as possible to get the gut punch myself on my own, I only got to the Rumi parts of Maruki's palace but that's IT. I'm starved. I need to finish Royal.

Sumire. Where do I even start. She feels so real to me...The jealousy, the self-hatred, the longing to be anybody but yourself to be liked, the admiration and clingyness towards the first person who wishes to lend you a hand (+ it becoming so strong you almost build your own self around them), the disdain towards superficial words of support, the loneliness she feels towards her emotions ("you'll never understand how I feel!"), the inferiority complex, the stubbornness to fight for a delusion you upheld for so long because of reality being so frightening to face alone. Even if Atlus fumbled the bag with her too, in all honesty, being 16 is just. Like that. I get it.

Sumire is far too kind to those who don't deserve it. But she isn't stupid, she KNOWS a bitch when she sees one and honestly? It's a crime how she didn't get to have a 1 on 1 with Maruki. Even if she's the one who sked for it, He ruined her. She deserved to be more upset with him, i don't care what anyone says.

Also, it's amazing how high her confidence can go. During her fake awakening, "Kasumi" decides she's had enough of people stepping over her, treating her like a failure. She reminds the world that "I am Kasumi Yoshizawa!" and that she's willing to fight for her place in this world. Her rebellion surges from her wish to not be shoved aside and pupettered anymore, not be treated as a gossip-target or a tool for good rep, but as a person. Sumire, on the other hand, fights to learn this herself. She fights to believe this, to drill it into herself that Sumire Yoshizawa isn't worth being forgotten about. She fights on to believe that Sumire Yoshizawa is worth more than what her brain believes.

But in the end, both versions of herself wish for the same thing: to live. To live proud, stand tall, to remind the world that Yoshizawa isn't just a pretty name on a golden trophy, a tag on a wooden toy, or the name of a science experiment. To remind all of them and herself that Sumire Yoshizawa is a name worth fighting for. And a name she won't forget ever again.

So yeah Sumire's. Cool, I guess

[goofballproximitysurveyor]

I drew this, please stop reposting it without credit!

a sort of indulgent rant :P

[original post as proof]

Since the wider internet is talking about plagiarism I think it's a good time to start talking about art theft/uncredited reposting/etc. as well and I'm particularly going to talk about my experience with it.

Before I say anything else I want to say please don't harass people who may not have a good grasp on internet etiquette! (and please assume that is the case unless someone has intentionally plagiarized/stolen people's work and credited it as their own) That is not what I'm asking you to do and for future reference if someone was excessively rude to you in calling out that you reposted my things I did not endorse that behavior. I do encourage calling out when you see people reposting art and linking back to the original work but I do not encourage harassment. On a similar note, this isn't meant to make anyone feel bad or guilty for not having a good grasp on this particular thing. This is just me explaining how it makes me feel and hopefully get people to understand why it's so hurtful so they don't do it in the future, and maybe they get to me explaining it nicely before other people explain it not-so-nicely LOL.

Some reasons why I personally don't like it when people repost my art even if this particular post is a shitpost and not something I put a whole lot of effort into:

(This list is definitely independent/fanartist-centric, I'm not really claiming this to be anything but that.)

Images get edited and distorted as the meme chain goes on, I have seen this end up with artists feeling like their art that they put a lot of effort into like all that work was a joke. Which, evidently is pretty disrespectful

In a personal anecdote, I have seen people say really rude things about me and the Blazblue community on Tumblr while reposting my things (art and otherwise) on twitter and other social media sites. It's really hurtful that people will disrespect me and my friends while using the bits and pieces they like.

Additionally, not everyone on the internet is familiar with common English-speaking internet terminology and etiquette. What may seem like a compliment or neutral statement for you may be rude to them. Generally speaking, a lot of Japanese artists take great offense to their work being reposted in any way whatsoever. ESPECIALLY if you didn't ask beforehand. People have privated or deleted works or entire accounts over this.

It takes away attention from the artist, and this isn't just people complaining about their art not getting enough likes/reblogs online. I have had my commissions open for months with next to no attention toward it and have periodically given up on promoting, with that in mind I grow more bitter about the fact that my only work that regularly gets attention isn't even representative of my current work but also isn't even attached to my name.

There are a lot more reasons, but it really is just a matter of respecting people who make the content you like and crediting people who make things you like.

If you see art that might be fanart and want to find the original source so you can either share it in a server, ask the artist permission to use it somewhere else, or sort of vigilante credit it for somewhere else, here's some places you can easily reverse search for images or find the artist who drew them (hint: if a work has been deleted it's good practice to still credit the artist)

SauceNAO - especially good for fanart since it's a curation of popular Japanese and western image sharing sites. Works best with full images. Found my art on pixiv and deviantART.

Google Image Search - Unreliable, may work with popular artwork but will probably struggle to find it otherwise, very rarely found my artwork. But probably your better bet for heavily cropped images at least to find the full image and then plug it in sauceNAO

But even then the best practice is if you don't know the source don't repost it until you've found it, and always reblog/retweet/what have you from the original artist before considering reposting it on your own account. Be strict and insistent on asking if people know the source of art they are reposting especially in discord servers and online spaces where it's commonly done.

[kiki-shortsnout]

Thanks for the tag @magicaltear Sorry it took me so long to respond! 😊😊

How many works do you have on AO3?

Too many,🤣 seventy-nine at the moment, but it’ll be eighty soon, once I finish this new mammoth story!

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

1,127,841, holy hell!🤯

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Currently, Marvel, although I am starting to slide into the Star Trek fandom, late as always. I’m working on a long retelling of the Wrath of Khan fic from a Spirk perspective.  I did use to write for Final Fantasy XV a while back, and I’d like to revisit that someday. I’m also eyeing up the My Hero Academia fandom and Yuri On Ice.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

OO, interesting question, for some reason I just cracked my knuckles in excitement.🤣

Stringless – 2,044

Betwixt – 2,023

Obstacles and Opportunities -1,523

Counterfeit Boyfriend – 1,368

Ternion- 1,299

You know what, I’m really surprised by number four if I’m honest. I was always under the impression that one hadn’t done very well, as usually the fics people talk to me about are Stringless, Betwixt and Love, Dreams and Coffee Machines. It’s a pleasant surprise, but I’m a little shocked!

5. Do you respond to comments? Yes, I try to respond to them all, sometimes things get in the way, and I forget, but I’ll always respond, it might just take a while! But I do appreciate all of them and the kudos, and occasional screams in my Tumblr inbox. It really does act as a motivation for more stories!💞

6.What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Oh, this one is easy. It’s Without You, it’s the only really sad story I’ve written. I mean, I love putting angst in my writing, but this is the one where Tony was dealing with his grief of losing Stephen, and he doesn’t get him back.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I think all my fics have happy endings if I’m honest.💞

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Yes, unfortunately, they tend to range from: Why are you writing about this couple? Why aren’t you writing about the couple you just did? I don’t like reading about this pairing. I’ve recently had a few saying my writing is awful, or my take on a story is awful.

I think that’s the risk you take with posting things online, which is saddening as I don’t think people always appreciate how much work, effort, time goes into any creation, be that art, fics, or mood boards. I’ll be honest, it can drag you down at times, and it has made me want to quit a few times, but the fandoms I’m in are incredibly supportive and welcoming, so I try not to let the few bad comments overwhelm the positive ones I have.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I think most of my fics have smut in, unless they’re the small prompt pieces I worked on, and I write all kinds, to enhance the plot, without a plot, multiple partners, solo self love.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

I haven’t no, but I I do have a request sitting in my inbox for a IronStrange/ Star Trek crossover which I really want to work on!

11.Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Back before my AO3 days yes, and when I confronted the writer about it they were very apologetic and took it down. I’ve had people take my stories and post them on Goodreads and I’ve had to fight with them several times to take down

12. Does not exist apparently

I’m not even 100% I exist if I’m honest.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I haven’t, I’ve worked with artists on stories before and that’s been incredibly fun.

14.What’s your all-time favourite ship?

I’ve had loads, but the one I’ve written for the most is IronStrange, although I enjoy writing for FrostIronStrange more.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

I actually have a half-written JohnLock one sitting on my laptop, but I’m not sure I’ll ever get back to it. I love the idea and I love writing it, but I don’t know if I can get their voices quite right and I keep losing faith in it.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I’ve always been told it's my characterisations and emotive writing, which are huge compliments.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I would say it’s writing action/fighting scenes, I always leave a place card saying ‘Write fight scene here’ and go back to it at the end. I just…find writing them tedious and I don’t think I always get the movement right, or the stakes, if that makes sense?

I struggle with pacing too sometimes….like I want to get to the good bits of the story and skim over the other bits.

18.Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

The only other language I know is French from what they taught at school, and unless you want me to write a story where I need to order stationery and tell you where the library is, it’d better if I just stuck with English.😂😂

If I did need dialogue in another language, I’d reach out to an author who I knew could speak the language.

19.First fandom you wrote for?

Beyblade, way back in the olden days…..or actually, maybe it was Lord of The Rings?

20. Favourite fic you’ve written?

I’ll always have a soft spot for Stringless because it was the first IronStrange I’d ever written and I was so nervous about writing for Marvel and posting it, and Ternion because again, I’d never written a poly couple and I was really anxious about writing Loki.

But the fic I enjoyed writing the most was Betwixt. I was devastated when I finished writing that because I’d poured my soul into it. I wrote it on pieces of scrap paper during meetings, I stayed up late working on it, and I got up early to write it. I always enjoy the stories I work on, but that one holds a special place in my heart.

I’m desperate to write a sequel for it.

Tagging @the-elle-kat @atypical-snowman @jeromesankara @xoniarainforest and anyone else who wants to play!

[jones-friend]

I PLAYED SOME MORE GAMES TODAY

Im beginning to rouse from my month of COVID fatigue and got 4 new games in today! 3/4 are from Pandasaurus games, which I’ll have some thoughts on later. They’re varying degrees of good!

One trend I’ve noticed is modern games like to saw two proven games in half and glue them together. Clank! is a dungeon crawler/deck builder. Arnak is a worker placement/deckbuilder. Eschaton is a deckbuilder/risklike. Emerge is if you played Yahtzee to play Carcassone.

In Emerge we are scientists exploring islands for wildlife for points. The goal is to make multi-tiered islands with lots of wildlife meeples on them. You do so by rolling dice and assigning them to actions on your player mat. There are also 4 goals to keep up with and research tokens you can find by making islands or spending unused dice. After 8 rounds the game is scored and the most VP’s wins. One aspect I enjoyed was the modifier tiles. Once per round you can remove/add/swap tiles around your board, this causes numbers to collect for different resources. Numbers are placed on your mat and can be spent together for different meeples or island tiles. So I could put a crab tile on 4 (as pictured) and spend dice from 2 and 4 to place crab meeples on my island. Islands score for the number of tiers times number of meeples.

Emerge is a bit tougher to recommend than most of my games here. I like it, it has some things I like, but it has some I don’t. I don’t think the tile abilities do enough to negate the variation and luck in rolls. You only get one roll, and granted I probably should have taken on at least one or two more tiles, but I didn’t feel they did enough compared to something like One Deck Dungeon. I feel for an optimization game, optimization enjoyers might get annoyed with bad rolls they get stuck with. There’s also a lack of meaningful player to player interaction. There’s racing for objectives first, obtaining research tokens first, and the four bird tokens that can be moved and stolen. I liked the idea of it, but I wanted more. I also felt the objectives asked a lot of you without offering enough reward for chasing them, I focused objectives while my bud islands, and while I scored all four objectives he still won by some 10+ points.

If you want a laid back dice game and you enjoy the presentation of Emerge I would say pick it up. It looks great and at times feels great to make decisions on your player mat for what goes where. If there’s an invite to a game its worth a play. Im not sure if I’d recommend picking it up unless its something you click with.

Apes together strong. After Us takes place in the post apocalypse where Apes rule the world and are racing to reach evolved intelligence. After Us is a puzzle-y deck builder. Players drsw four cards from their deck and organize them in any way they wish. You must combine costs with benefits, collects with collects, and solve the “puzzle” of what works best with what to gather resources and score victory points. The game ends when a player reaches 80 points.

Similar to Emerge theres a lot of bits I like and a few I don’t. There is a lot of simultaneous play that keeps turns from being bogged down and I appreciate that. We all assemble our monkeys together and resolve them at once. Its a brisk game that doesn’t overstay its welcome and the presentation/art is fabulous.

Where I have a bone to pick with After Us is in its RNG and player interaction. When you recruit new apes you draw from a facedown deck. You know vaguely what that ape is good at. The four types focus victory points, batteries, exile/trash, and repeat actions. You’re blind drawing from cards that don’t have specific abilities, just costs and benefits that are slightly randomized across the deck. But I ended up drawing lots of battery costs while my opponent did not, the apes I drew had a harder time with resources than my opponent’s draws, who provided and consumed similar resources. And there wasn’t an easy way out since all cards were blind draws.

The game also lacks any meaningful player interaction, its just a race. Theres a mechanic where when buying an ape you get a benefit of that clan and can pay 2 to copy a neighbor’s benefit, but it feels very stapled on last minute. Because its the only non simultaneous moment the only player interaction slows the game down.

After Us is another harder recommend. If you enjoyed Earth you will enjoy After Us. Earth similarly had low player interaction, youre all tuning engines till one pops. If you’re comfortable with that more solitaire play the puzzle of four apes in a line is enjoyable.

In Aurum players take the role of alchemists making formulas for gold. Aurum is a trick taking game with some higher level mechanics to it that will be hit or miss. There’s 5 “base metal” suits and a gold “trump” suit. Players start with a hand of base metals and one 0 gold. The leading player plays a card. The other players must follow, playing DIFFERENT suits than each other. The highest card wins the trick BUT the lowest card gains a gold card in their “collection” worth victory points. This card may also be used in tricks. At the beginning of the game players choose a number and put down a card from their hand of that number. That is their bid, they want to win exactly that many tricks. Go under and you get nothing. Go over and you score the bid in points. Match the bid and gain double the number in points.

So sometimes you wanna win the trick. Sometimes you want to force someone else to win. Sometimes you want to spend a 6-7 to lose the trick but gain a gold card of that value for points.

For a trick taking game there’s a number of things to consider. Do you want to waste a card that could take a trick on getting gold? Do you want to spend that 1-2 VP gold to ensure you reach your bid?

We played the 3 player variant and I found it to be this interesting standoff. Otherwise it plays 1v1 and 2v2.

If you’re into trick taking games and want something new. In the world of $30 medium pizzas and $10 1lb ground beef Aurum is $15. I recommend picking it up and giving it a try. It won’t work for everyone, but having a 3 player variant was fascinating. Like the other two games fantastic art direction and great quality, great presentation.

Four Humours is a prisoner’s dilemma game. Players place potions in scenes and once two scenes are full all are resolved in this order of operations how the four humors can “win” in priority order. Winning potions are placed on the board to satisfy objective cards. Whoever satisfies the most wins.

To explain the prisoner’s dilemma if you’re unfamiliar, there’s one scene in Four Humours with only two potion slots. Each can hold Choleric or Sanguine. Choleric wins if there is only one in the scene. 2+ choleric means nobody wins. Sanguine is next in priority. If Choleric doesn’t win, Sanguines all win if there are 2+ in a scene, regardless if they are owned by different players. Your opponent claims they played a Sanguine. Do you trust them? If you play your Sanguine and they played Choleric you lose. If you both played Choleric you both lose. If you both played Sanguine you both win. If you decide to screw your friend over and play Choleric to their Sanguine only you win.

And decisions like that are the core of the game. The 4-5 scene cards and 6 party tiles are all logic puzzles and bluffing/diplomacy minigames. With the mechanics behind the four humours you can goad people into making bad moves or win without actually winning the scene. You can be sneaky and crafty, treacherous or trustworthy.

Truly its mechanics are light, the game is placed between you and your buds rather than on your own playmats. With the nature of this game I wouldn’t recommend playing with less than four people, and it can hold up to six at a time. Its a great game that works off a great dilemma, trying to work around possibilities and promises of different players claiming to place different humours where feels great. Great replay value too, our game went thru about 1/2 the scenes and theres an alt game mode to explore.

I heartily recommend this one, easy pick.

One last bit before I snooze. Pandasaurus is a game company I own many games for: Brew, Dinosaur World, Wild Space, now Emerge and Aurum. Every game I’ve played from them is 80% of a really fantastic game. Its just missing a little something. The presentation is stellar, the effort is there, the creativity is apparent. I’m not trying to slam their games by any means.

Most end up relying on their theme harder than their mechanics. Games are carried at the thought of what you’re doing than the nuts and bolts behind it. Emerge, without set dressing, is a game of assembling tokens on tiles and adding base tiles to their tiles, rolling dice to do so. Wild Space is a game of playing cards to play more cards. What makes them tick is their stellar theming and A+ presentation with materials and art.

If you see this logo understand this might not be the most mechanically sound game. It also might not have the most player interaction, if any. But its going to look great at the table and each game has something that will make your brain go brrrr like the board game equivalent of a fidget spinner.

[genericpuff]

I kinda disagree with your take about Rachel not reading the Homeric Hymn, but rather that she choose to ignored the meaning behind Persephone’s words when Hermes came to the Underworld. Persephone was clearly sad from no longer even knowing what was happening to her mother and friends, and wanting to see them again. And it was clear as water (we still don’t have the full hymn, yet) that Hades tricked her to always come back to him, no matter what her feelings are.

But, a lot of modern pop culture has romanticed this part, where the two are in love and the "EVIL" Demeter has been overacting for her baby Kore :(

And let’s be honest for a moment a lot of people, myself included, like the dinamic of butterfly person with a goth/emo person. That thousands of people have ignore the meaning behind the tragic implications of the Hymn and now are forcing the hole Beauty and the Beast dynamic on a tale that has little to no room for that kind of nonsense.

Even to the point of claiming that Hades is not bad compared to Zeus, when they both have versions of their tales when they force woman to stay with them, Zeus with the Cuckoo and the murder of Iason and Hades kidnapping and r@ppjng Persephone.

I would have say that the version where at least both Demeter being sad and Demeter being a force of nature, without making her into an evil/over protective Witch may be in Super giant Hades, where she atleast she can make peace with Persephone and Persephone can decide when to go out of the Underworld by herself and nobody else forcing her to stay.

We really need to teach younger girls to please see things how they really are, as this kind of narrative aren’t healthy at all for all of them, they can easily see an abusive man as a prince in shining armor for the hole, I can fix him bullshit.

No that's fair and valid, and precisely why I put the disclaimer on that take that it's partially mean, partially presumptuous. I'm definitely not firm in my belief that she 'didn't read it', but the messaging of it clearly went over her head IMO. Hence why I'm more likely to believe even if she read the Hymn, she didn't actually observe it or analyze it or internalize it quite like how she's analyzed and internalized the more fanfic-y versions of the Hymn, with the traits that you outlined above. There's even been interviews she's done where she's stated that Persephone was her "muse" when she was a kid but clearly not for the reasons you'd expect, from what I can tell from how she writes and views the Hymn, she seemed to consume it the exact same way she would a 1980's/90's Disney movie - the "princess" was "stolen away" by a "dark prince" but really he was "rescuing" her from the "evil (step)mom". Like, Lore Olympus is incredibly Disney-fied when you look closer at it and we all know how much RS loves Disney stuff so I wouldn't be surprised if she read the Hymn through that exact same lens, especially if she never analyzed it beyond her surface reading of it as a child.

While I'm talking about it (though it goes beyond the scope of your original ask) her interview responses regarding her 'past' with the H x P mythos is interesting and... not to be a dick (and again, this is probably very presumptuous of me so take it with grains of salt) but a lot of it 'doesn't check out' if you know what I'm saying. Like, you can find old websites and accounts with her pre-LO art on it and none of it was enraptured with H x P the way she claims she was when she was a child. You'd think if she was a child growing up and learning to draw, she'd have a lot more to show for it besides just LO in her later years. I was obsessed with Legend of Zelda as a kid and, big surprise, everything I drew was Legend of Zelda, even my main series was a Zelda fanfic back in the day. If Persephone was her "muse" all the way back when she was 12 leading up to the release of LO in her thirties, why doesn't any of her older art reflect that at all?

But that's just my two cents on the matter, and a very opinionated/anecdotal one at that. Far be it from me to make assumptions based on old art from defunct web pages. I just think it's all very odd how she frames her relationship with the myths. Needless to say, at the very least, she definitely hasn't gotten the 'point' of many of those myths (or she did and chose to bastardize/fetishize them anyways) and she absolutely is not a folklorist.

And beyond that, it's not a healthy narrative to push either way, that the girl should just run off with the emotionally stunted rich guy, I've been saying it since Twilight and it's kind of exhausting that I have to keep repeating it to this day ten years later. But alas, I repeat it anyways because it's still a problem and it's a problem that I think is worth talking about so that we don't keep normalizing this type of narrative.

[morganlefaye79]

What kind of experience are you?

I was tagged by @theviridianbunny, thank you so much!

Valaire

you leave people feeling challenged (affectionate).

a shiver. a breath of cool winter air, a stick n poke tattoo; the last few switchbacks at the end of a hike. a deep red. a proud sweat, a delicious ache. early dawn’s blue hour. a favorite story you love to retell. the excited scream, the staggering leap into water below. not fearless, but not afraid to let a good memory leave a few scars or stains. while you have moments of being rough around the edges—an acquired taste, a book not fully grasped in the first read-through—you can rest knowing that there will be people that rise to your challenge. you give off a sense of knowing yourself, and while that could be the case, you’re still learning, too. the close people in your life aren’t afraid of your seasons, your come-and-go silence, or your own way of showing love. they’re there to stay. they’ll join you on that blue hour dock just to read. they’ll take that last-minute road trip to the desert. you’re here to say, “I know you could do it.”

Joris

you leave people feeling inspired.

a moment of stolen breath. aquarium peace, walking through an art museum alone; a mesmerizing chorus of crowds singing along at the concert. turquoise blue. a sunshower. stained glass. paint stains on jeans. finishing a good book. pressed flowers. glasses of wine on your best friend’s balcony, the sun flirting from the horizon. spending time with you is nourishing in a way that feeds growth. it is the creative way you view the world, the way you move through life (whether expressed through dance, writing, music, visual art, cooking, or otherwise) that sparks the imagination of those around you. they watch you translate your experience in the truest form you know how, and they feel inspired to do the same. you seek to find universal understanding through these mediums, and the ones you hold close admire that hunger; maybe also happy to join in and get dirt under their nails, digging to the heart of things.

Vicco

you leave people feeling nostalgic.

drug store valentine's cards. a favorite childhood song crackled through the radio; secret folded notes to find later. a soft yellow. christmas lights. knowing all the movie scenes that make your best friend laugh. birthday candles. a favorite hot chocolate mug. arcade carpets. lazy sunny saturday mornings. young, but not naive. you give people the sense of being held. falling asleep in the car and being carried safely inside. an acknowledgment that no matter how we age, there’s still something small and reaching within us that never goes away completely. (and that it’s not a bad thing.) there’s something sweet about you that feels hard to come by nowadays. a “they don’t make them like you anymore.” maybe it’s a chance to dip a toe back into childhood or a less pressured place—into imagination again, if even for a short while. a chance your presence gives in allowing people to enjoy it all more fully this time around.

I tag without any pressure: @wanderingaldecaldo | @honourandsteel | @genocidalfetus | @therealnightcity | @chevvy-yates | @just-a-cybercroissant | @kittenchrissy | @ghostoffuturespast | @maimaiapologist

If I forgot someone, mea culpa, I lost my taglists 😞 But feel free to pretend that I tagged you 😉

[entropieogchaos]

I'm seeing alot of people criticizing AI art as being "plagiarism." This statement ignores the definition of plagiarism. AI art is NOT plagiarism. It is NOT stealing someone else's work and passing it off as your own. When an AI generates a new piece, it is making it completely from essentially nothing, from a collection of random numbers. As it generates, the algorithm compares it to the text prompt and and says yes or no at each stage until something theoretically close to the prompt is created. People are talking about this process as if it's copy/pasting, ie: "sampling" from existing art to make the image. That's simply not how this works, and even if it did, that still wouldn't be plagiarism (it would be a kind of collage). People are also arguing that art was used for training the models without the artist's permission, and therefore everything those models make is "stolen" from that artist. You could make an argument that using art for training without permission is maybe problematic (strong emphasis on "maybe"), but that doesn't make the resulting images "stolen" from that artist, any more than human-made art painted in a figurative Renaissance style is "stolen" from Renaissance artists!

Three examples to illustrate my point:

1) If you paint an exact copy of a Fragonard and pass it off as your own original work, THAT is plagiarism.

2) If you paint an exact copy of a Fragonard and use it in the context of parody, it is NOT plagiarism, because it's part of an original concept using parody of Fragonard.

3) If you paint an exact copy of a Fragonard and then pass it off as an original Fragonard, that is counterfeiting.

AI doesn't inherently do any of these things. Could an artist use AI to do any of them? Perhaps, but with extreme limitations since we're talking about something that lives solely within the digital realm. You can't use AI to make a counterfeit Fragonard to try and sell; that's physically impossible. And using AI to make exact plagiarized copies of digital art seems rather pointless, since all one needs to do is Right Click -> Save As and you get an exact PERFECT copy with zero effort, so why bother trying to get an AI to do it? Just save Beeple thing and post it up saying it's your own work - instant plagiarism with no AI needed!

"Wait wait!" I hear you saying, "it's about them stealing my LOOK!" Well, let me ask you... how original is your look anyway? This goes back to my statement about artists painting in a Renaissance style. I think the fact that "Artstation" is reduced to an easily recognizable and copied style says more about the lack of diversity and originality of the art posted there than it does about the machine copying the style.

There are some very serious criticisms of AI art that can be made, and I will be discussing them in future posts, but accusing it of being plagiarism and theft is way off the mark and takes away from the things that should be discussed.

[callgespenst]

Best of 2022 Media Post

I read/watched a whole lot last year! Here’s the summary of what I enjoyed the most.

Sing a Bit of Harmony: The best new anime movie I saw last year. Usually I try and watch everything I can subbed, but I caught the dub showing for this and it was really well done. Very lived-in and real-feeling near future setting, some wonderful stuff about AI, and just a really good coming of age story. A year later it’s apparently finally getting a US BD release so I’m excited to finally watch it subbed.

Dress-Up Darling: Found this show oddly relatable (or at least, the parts about making the costumes). Wholesome in a roundabout way, and has a very true to life portrayal of how horny teenagers can be, without being weird or gross about it.

Everything Everywhere All At Once: I haven’t been hooked by a trailer for a movie like that in a very long while. Just seeing the preview I knew I was in for a great time, and it delivered. A lot of other people’s favorite movie of 2022 as well, but it’s just that good.

Creamy Mami: One of the earliest magical girl shows, and yet, goes in directions completely untouched by any of its successors. Excellent funny little mascot characters, bopping tunes, and some of the funniest episodes of anything I’ve ever seen. An absolute must watch. Still have some OVAs to go through at some point.

Thrilling Bloody Sword: the summary said “a martial arts movie based on Snow White” and while that’s technically true, it’s so, so much more from that. When the opening credits played and the movie’s main theme turned out to -literally- just be a stolen reindition of the Space Battleship Yamato opening, I knew I was in for a good time. Bonkers battles, a completely unpredictable plot, and special effects that weren’t even good at the time combine into a flawless package. Also, the male main antagonist is weirdly hot and also an incredible actor. When the special effects are that bad, you gotta really give it your all to sell them.

Glass Onion: Another popular pick, but it’s damn good. Needs every second of its two and a half hour runtime. Has a great core message, a superb female lead, and the best use of celebrity cameos in any media I’ve seen in a good long while. Hope there’s many more Benoit Blanc mysteries to come.

Spy X Family: The first anime adaptation in a hot minute that got me to read the source material. A perfect mix of comedy, action, and good old fashioned spy thrills. My only complaint is that there’s not nearly enough Yor getting to do what she does best, but I think the next part of the manga I have to read will fix that.

Dragon Ball Super Hero: Went to go see this twice! Wasn’t sure how the 3DCG would go over, but it was really well done. Got me to finally re-read Dragon Ball all the way through like I’ve wanted to for ages, so that was good too. The action’s great, but it’s really the good ol’ Toriyama humor in full force.

Symphony of the Night: Not sure what I can say about one of the most acclaimed video games of all time, but it was a lot of fun! I could feel myself getting better as I went along, especially when I got into the Reverse Castle. Had to start using my entire toolkit to get by. Think I’ll definitely play another Castlevania game for Halloween this year.

Flying Phantom Ship: Like Creamy Mami, a massive inspiration for a lot of series that have come since, and yet, I saw almost nothing that happened in this movie coming. Only an hour, but with at least three hours worth of twists and turns. Nothing I say about this film can really do it justice.

Phantom of the Paradise: Tremendously well put together movie. Great music by the legendary Paul Williams with a story you probably already know, but put together in a captivating and engrossing way. Knows it’s a story and who the main characters are, and has them interact in ways that really show off all their strengths and flaws. That said, my favorite character might actually be the man only known as Beef, I think about him a lot.

That’s everything for 2022! I have no particular goals on the media front for 2023, but I’m excited to see what it brings.

[endormiscat]

Let’s please not lose focus on what truly makes AI art to be bad

The problem with AI art is not that it’s generative. It’s also not that it’s poor quality either. It’s “just” immoral.

First, let’s establish that generative art has been a thing for a while now, way before the introduction of these large AI models, and it’s one of my favorite branches of art. I consider myself a somewhat creative person, I just didn’t have the motivation to practice the skills required to draw or write. It wasn’t until much later, that I discovered worldbuilding and conlanging, where I found my hole, my creative outlet. As a software engineer, I also love procedural systems, when it’s not a buzzword to try to sell a game’s replayability. I think Dwarf Fortress is peak generative art.

Y’all remember Cheap Bots Done Quick, right? Maybe not by that name, but if you’ve ever followed any of those automated accounts on Twitter (before Elon Musk decided to sacrifice them to try to appease the Spambot gods, in vain) that made procedurally generated emoji landscapes: those were generative art too!

That’s not the only kind of Cheap Bots that were on Twitter; there was this bot that roleplayed as a lonely car AI in a barren world that I loved. Another one that roleplayed as a ragtag of survivors making by in a flooded post-apocalypes semi-fantastical world, describing day to day mundane events. The CBDQ platform uses Tracery, a library that let’s you procedurally generate strings of text very easily by providing some rules, created by Dr. Kate Compton. She has made a lot of other cool generative art experiments that you can see if you dig around her website or Twitter. Here’s one of the first generative art accounts I came across on Twitter, made by her! Another example (that is not CBDQ) is this cute DnD character generator. Look what other cool things people do for the Procedural Jam! Janelle Shane’s work (1, 2), immortalized in her book “You Look Like a Thing and I Love You“! (She has a blog here on tumblr as well)

I think there is a beauty in making unpredictable tools and experimenting with them together, seeing chance align to produce uniquely poetic results sometimes (other times it falls flat or fails spectacularly, but that’s generative systems baby). I think that’s art and nobody can take that experience from me. And this is just all the current digital-only generative art! There are expos too and stuff. Haven’t looked much into that but I know it exists.

So saying “AI art is bad because it’s generative” totally discredits this whole wing of art. So be careful when branding “writing a prompt is not art” around as an argument. Don’t let the fact that saying this only gets you horny weirdos pushing back on it distract you from the fact that it’s a shaky argument.

Saying “AI art is bad because it’s poor quality” is also a slippery slope. This is where the whole “look at the fingers!” bit goes. Yes, this is a very flagrant limitation of the technology. But technology limits only stay around for so long, we should all already know that. Just GPT-4′s arrival is already heralding image generation with good looking hands. And you’re also discrediting all the poor artists who don’t know how to draw hands either.

No, what makes AI truly bad is the whole immorality in the act of using it. It sources it’s training without no filter on what could be legitimately used and what’s being stolen, and then offering a product built on that stolen material with the original creator not just not seeing any compensation for their work, but being completely removed from the equation. THAT’s what people should be focusing on. No “but also it looks funny” because then the people who should care to make a change will think the moment it stops looking funny it will suddenly be ok. It will not. And on the other hand we also don’t want a whole style of art to be outlawed just to get rid of immoral AI art. It’s a very complex matter around technology and we still got lawmakers who don’t know what emojis are.

PS: Personally, I think that the training datasets should be publicly published (as in, a log of all the metadata used; you don’t need to attach every picture or text, but at least an index with the name, the author and the source used for each piece of material). This allows anyone to look for their stuff and see if it was misused. If you’re a company and don’t feel confident in doing even that, you should perish. Alongside that, I think a new license should be created specifically to sell to companies looking to use your material as a training data. And the proof of owning said license should be publicly published alongside the dataset metadata, so every piece for which the company doesn’t have a license for and isn’t in the public domain should be marked as illicit.

[quiteanoriginal]

Quick thoughts on AI art

The arguments against AI art are obvious yet worth stating: 1) It's built on stolen labor of thousands of artists who will go uncredited while struggling to earn enough 2) Even if everyone who made the training data were compensated, it will lessen future opportunities to earn money doing art 3) Its work product lacks humanity and cannot generate human-like insights

I took a look at a a rendering of a fictional David Cronenberg movie called Galaxy of Flesh (1985). The image set has a number of problems: ** It regresses to the mean and mixes Cronenberg too liberally with Star Wars (the dusty, computery worlds), Alien (the designs share Geiger's organic bowel-like designs more than what I associated with Cronenberg), and there's even one that has a Terminator-like figure next to a Schwarzenegger-like figure. ** It doesn't accomplish the hard part, the cohesion of the images into a story. There are obviously no main characters or repeated figures. We can't see a development of an idea across it: a character that learns something, a setting that is changed by something, all those things that art actually studies. I'm reminded of Matt Bell's attempt to get AI to generate a blurb which promises a "secret that threatens to tear their world apart." AI will not be able to actually define that secret, not just it can't do anything "novel" (remix is a novelty, for sure), but because it works bottoms-up. It has no vision ** The images are often just bad. Faces are over sharpened or over smoothed. Supposedly solid objects simply fade into backgrounds. Textures don't obey 3D spatial logic in a way that would be filmable. No human designing these images would want to do that.

Mainly, though, my mind goes to my earlier point that AI images lack human-level insights, in particular, the gas masks it puts on some figures. The idea that masks used in the mechanized WWI, which hide the face, can be repurposed as a viscerally frightening symbol in art criqiquing empire or war is such a human insight. I cannot imagine an AI ever coming up with that. Instead, it can only repurpose it from its training data.

Similarly, there's a popular clip going around of Spielberg interviewed about Close Encounters where the interviewer observes that the climax of the film involves making music with computers, while Spielberg's parents were a musician and computer scientist. Spielberg glows at this comment, that somehow, he put something personal and human in the work without being obviously aware of it. AI couldn't do that. Its mind is not a human one, and it will not do what human minds do.

The right thing to do ethically might be to invoke a Luddite ethos, and use whatever powers (legal, publicity, influence) to smash these machines before they take over. The right thing to do aesthetically might be to think about Hayao Miyazaki who, when shown a creepy animation of a creature that AI-learned to walk using its head, told a story about a friend of his who suffered from muscle problems, who could barely move, and used that to say that "whoever creates this stuff has no idea of pain." This, like the gas masks and Close Encounters, shows what art can be when it is made by humans.

The labor concerns are enough that I believe anyone is fair to call it a day on AI art and refuse to participate or indulge it any further.

The aesthetic concerns I don't particularly buy. The fact is: AI art is absolutely still based in humanity. The training data was human. The design of the model was made by humans. We accept all sorts of art which are as tenuous to ties to humanity as AI art. When a natural sunset occurs and a machine's sensors receive data and a printer deposits ink onto a page with those color values, we can still consider that photograph artful. The creepy animation that Miyazaki denigrates was AI-generated, but there are plenty of human-designed animations which are not respective of the pain of Miyazaki's friends yet which no one doubts are artful.

We have been through the 20th century and we understand that computer-assisted art, chance-based art, mechanically reproduced art, and even intentionally anti-human art exists. Much great art (maybe, all great art) is produced in ethically compromised production processes.

Even the criticisms I levied against Galaxy of Flesh are flimsy: ** We love remixes and we don't hold almost any art to the perfect standard of originality ** We accept and praise art that is non-narrative, that has disjointness, which presents without needing to cohere ** We welcome imperfections

To defend AI art is cruel to humanity. It is naïve to pretend that because there exits an interesting and artful way to use AI for art, AI art will be deployed interestingly and artfully. Galaxy of Flesh (1985) is not a good piece of art. It is too long. It is neither coherent nor interesting in its incoherence. It doesn't contain almost any of the beauty and elegance of the human body that Cronenberg places everywhere. The person who posted it on Twitter is acting like a schmuck to anyone who brings up labor concerns and doesn’t deserve good faith the way another artist who dumps raw AI output might.

I still see an imaginative use of those images, though. I feel, underneath many layers of disgust and frustration about living as an artist today, a little inspired by these images. I can see something I would want to create there, and which another artist may want to create. I can imagine an artist who chains together queries with different models, who writes artful prompts, who mixes media between what the AI can do and what else can be done to reach different final works.

I just wouldn't want to pretend that this sugar-high, unnourishing spark would sustain anyone. We deserve better.

Source: https://imgur.com/gallery/KQrpbw3 https://twitter.com/mdbell79/status/1610374083883184128 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZspOEa1CP4A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngZ0K3lWKRc https://twitter.com/keithscho/status/1612991766441111552

[lostinthecosmos]

Finally got around to drawing vampire stephen! @osheets‘s au got me inspired enough to doodle it (and also my urge to want to draw stephen with sharp teeth/red eyes)

More variations under the cut (trigger warning for blood for the last two)