zenfulmockingbird

[zenfulmockingbird]

and yoink.

[zenfulmockingbird]

The creator of the lesbian flag, Emily Gwen, is currently unhoused and struggling financially while suffering to chronic and mental illness.

I have already contributed to her Kofi, and now I ask you to help, especially if you have ever used the lesbian flag. Even if you can't donate, I urge you to share her Kofi around to reach more audiences

Lesbians support other lesbians 🧡🤍💗

[zenfulmockingbird]

Here’s my twisted wonderland au where everything is the same except Yuu is an Umamusume from he hit game Umamusume

[zenfulmockingbird]

Uncomfortable facts of life:

Nobody's going to magically swoop in to rescue you. You can't just sit there and expect someone else to come save you. You have to get your shit together and do it yourself.

About 90% of the time, the "it" you have to do on your own is pushing yourself to walk up to someone else and use your words to say "hey I need help."

[zenfulmockingbird]

Fuga: Elegy for normal

Herding Moosheep, collecting Clucken eggs, and living happily with my friend and family. It was my life.

This was far from those times. I became the hero of Gasco laying bare under satin covers with a girl that I could only describe as an angel.

How I got here is a story that was too bizarre for words.

Me and my friend were living our lives when the Berman attacked Petite Mona. From the words from a voice on the radio told us to run. We manage to escape into the forbidden grounds where the Taranis was sleeping. We boarded the tank and when it woke up, our life as children of fortunes began. We battled our ways through Berman lines as we tried to end the war. There we met many more kids that also got caught up in the crossfire- The mischievous Hack and the level head Chick trying to survive due to losing their parent, Sheena who ran away from the cruelty of that quack, Jin sought revenge on the one who killed his father, the wild girl Wappa who would smile even in death, Britz who turned traitor and fought back against the Berman.

Oblivious to it all, we were being used as pawns in one own obsession. After it was over, we thought that would be the end of this steel odyssey. How wrong we were.

We were thrown into the frey again, this time to chase after the same tank we lived those days in the same machine with the same man that had caused us grief and through a sea of metal corpses we had slain not so long ago. It was in death that I met him and became aware and it was after we survived that I learned that Vanilla; Felineko whose life was manipulated by the one she trusted and shaped into a piece for a twisted scheme that I’ve seen with my own eyes had snuck. With each failure I saw I figured out a plan to survive. Despite this, two tragedies happened- Hanna disappearing to nothingness and Vanilla’s sacrificing. The latter of which was due to me becoming so absorbed with the goal to end this war and if I didn’t realize what I was becoming, she would just ignore anything I said. No, I would have just ignored her and thought of a way around it.

After the war, I thought it was over. But like they said, third the charm and in our case it was a bad one.

I saw all of them die, one by one, all because of me. It was a what if, but it was one that branded itself deeply into my mind. My sister also had the gift both Ash and I had, and she used it to save me and somewhere in all this madness but became captive to a madman. In the end we undo not one, but three madmen schemes.

Since then, we have gotten our moment of peace and a long one that allows us to grow in comfort. Kyle had become more open with others, Hanna had gained more of a resolve for her own dreams, Sock and Boron gained different types of courage. Hack , Chick, and Wappa have mellowed out and mature, Jin is now helping Sock to create a brighter future, Sheena continued to embrace the NoNo and Britz and Vanilla are moving toward helping others create a peaceful word, and Mei; my own sister had grown from the girl I once knew from those days.

And Me. I’ve grown with scars in my heart like the others. I’ve become a soldier that almost lost sight of his goal and the Felineko that he fell in love with. I became one of many celebrities followed by eyes filled with love and envy and my life became seen as a fairytale filled with flashing lights with some saying I’m fearless, but that's far from it. I'm still fear that another war would break out, that we will have to board the taranis or whatever war machine from the old war with their version of soul cannon, that the next time tragedy fall on us there will be no miracles waiting to save us and end up losing My family and my loved ones. To be part of another melody of steel.

Still I can’t help but wonder when did my normal life die? Was it when we faced the Vangand and the Tarchus? Maybe it was when we boarded the Tarnanis after following the words of a mysterious voice. Maybe it was that crimson night produced by the flames and the blood of my parents that had also fueled my fire. Or maybe..maybe there wasn’t a normal to begin with and I was just too naive to notice any of the signs. Either way, there is no way to return to it. I’ll live in this abnormal world with the girl that snuck on board that one day.

[zenfulmockingbird]

More DandaFuga cuz the new episodes are pretty good! 😋

[zenfulmockingbird]

A few years ago while trying to find ways to commit suicide as painlessly as possible, I came across a PDF of Dr. Paul Quinnett's The Forever Decision. Thinking it might go into actual methods of suicide (I read an article once that actually did that and was trying to find it again) I started to read it, and I think I only got about two pages in before I was crying too much to actually see the words.

I downloaded the PDF to my hard drive and I open it again whenever I'm feeling too suicidal to do much else, but not enough to start booking a ride to the hospital. And every time without fail I only go up to a few pages before backing off and choosing to live another day just because suicide suddenly seems even more unbearable than whatever the hell upset me in the first place.

All the book really does is [I'm pulling a summary from GoodReads here as, again, I've read no more than 5 pages] "discusses the social aspects of suicide, the right to die, anger, loneliness, depression, stress, hopelessness, drug and alcohol abuse, the consequences of a suicide attempt, and how to get help."

But it also starts with the author kindly asking the reader to complete the book before going through with anything, and for some reason I'm compelled to really just try to read it all before finalizing everything. Despite not yet completing it (hopefully never will) I think I can safely say it's saved my life at least a few times now.

It's intentionally legal to copy and redistribute this book to keep it as accessible as possible, and it's very easy to find, but here's a link for it anyways.

[zenfulmockingbird]

YO!

[zenfulmockingbird]

":')))))))) you realise that gen AI is available to everyone though right??? Queer creators can use it just as much as anyone else??? I just don't understand this post... It really feels like a cheap way to get on the 'AI Bad's bandwagon, and coming from such a thoughtful and insightful creator that's incredibly disappointing... It's okay to not comment on subjects you're not an expert in y'know...?"

Y'all know the drill, I am replying to this publicly but that is not an invitation to send any negative messages to the person I am replying to.

Anyways, let me start by saying that the original context of the post you're replying to is discussing an event where a queer org used generative AI to steal an interview with Keri Hulme. So let's start there. To be clear I don't even know if the original interviewer was queer so let's put the identities of stealer and stolen from to the side. I want to explain the harm done in this example specifically and I hope this is illustrative of what harm generative AI can (and does) do.

The original place I saw generative AI was a queer org that explicitly says they are using generative AI "for good", and as a way to bring more queer history to light. So let's take them at their word, and assume they are not out to cause harm. This is the best example of generative AI that I can imagine, so I hope that makes it clear that I am not coming at this issue from bad faith in any way.

Here is the harm they are causing:

Decontextualizing and rephrasing an interview: I am not going to pretend that I am an expert in academic best practices, but I do believe one thing, if a person is speaking on their own identity and lived experience, it is always much better to directly quote than it is to rephrase. As I read this source, I initially didn't know that it was AI, and I was already upset. An interview that is widely available on the internet with no pay wall, was poorly sourced and made more vague than it was in the initial text. By creating one degree of seperation between the original words of A WRITER (whose literal job was largely based in choosing the right words to describe experiences they had) harm is already done. It makes vague what was once clear, and removes Keri Hulme's voice from her own narrative.

The original interviewer is not paid, or given proper recognition: I get it, sometimes just copy pasting an interview doesn't feel transformative enough, but something that one would learn if they worked in the queer history field and weren't a literal robot rehashing what has already been said, is that not everything needs to be transformed. In those cases, we give credit to the person who said the original words (in this case Keri Hulme), and the interviewer who facillitated the conversation (in this case Shelley Bridgeman). This case (again a best case scenario), takes the attention and byline away from the original interviewer and gives it to an AI.

The original publisher of this story is deinsentivised from paying interviewers in the future: The original publisher of this interview has ads on their website. As a person who also has ads on their website, taking an article like this and rephrasing it for no good reason (the orginal word count was not prohibitive and the rephrasing did not make it more readable), takes money from the publisher. It's pennies, but it's also removing numbers could have been used to justify further interviews with asexual people and archiving of asexual stories. The org that stole from this publication does not interview people themselves so the money and numbers that could have gone to continue to preserve asexual stories goes to stealing them instead.

These are just the active harms that I saw in this specific case. As you said, I am not an expert in generative AI, and will not be speaking as if I am. But I will say that asking me not to speak out on active harm that is being caused in queer history spaces, is disrespectful to my many years in this field.

To illustrate this even clearer: if you were a patron, you would know I recently took down an old article. I have been rereading and editing our backlist of articles, and I found one that no longer fit my standards of sourcing. My standards had recently raised due to a video made by HBomberguy about someone in the queer history space who was stealing from other creators. I watched this video not as a work project, but because I watch most of HBomberguys videos, and this one made me think more critically about sourcing. An AI can't do that. All an AI has is what has been inputted, and it is right now impossible to input every available peice of information about ethics into an AI and get a coherent ethical basis on which it will function.

It is a distinctly human trait to absorb information and change in that way. AI can rephrase information that already exists, steal it, recontextualize it even, but it cannot create something altogether new.

Do I believe that there one day might be an ethical use for Generative AI? Maybe. Do I believe that coming into a queer history space, stealing the words of a Maori asexual author, rephrasing them, and giving the original interviewer and publication no form of compensation for their work, is accomplishing that? No.

On a more personal note: I am coming at this issue with a bias. As a queer history creator, I do not want AI in my space, because it is literally damaging to my financial prospects. It has been like pulling teeth to try and get patrons in the current state of the global economy. I don't blame anyone from that, but I feel very disrespected that I am being asked to compete with a machine now. Not only that, but I am being asked to shut up and be fine with it? No, absolutely not. I cannot and will not stay quiet as space that I have fought tooth and nail to create in mainstream discussions is taken and given to AI.

AI was not supporting me when I was sent gore to try and scare me off of discussing queer history. A person did that. AI was not there to tell me I had written too many sad stories, and I needed some happy endings to remind myself of the good in the world. A person did that. AI was not there when I was being harrassed for supporting and including asexual stories on my website. A person did that.

And after all that, I am being asked to lie down and take it when my ability to pay the people who supported me in those ways, is being threatened. Nope. Not going to happen.

An AI doesn't have to make rent. An AI doesn't understand what it feels like to have to stop holding their wife's hand in public. An AI didn't get calls from people needing comfort in reaction to the election. Pay me for my work, and get this AI nonsense out of my face.

[zenfulmockingbird]

Meg and tish lore drop

[zenfulmockingbird]

so Bobby has a shirt of the girls but consider the girls having a Bobby shirt ✨

[zenfulmockingbird]

enough about the timeloop I wanna hear about the post-timeloop.

person who just got over the horror of being trapped in a loop and settled into a comfortable routine...but then the timeloop breaks and they struggle to reacclimatize. person trapped in a loop for years who grieved their loved ones—who are suddenly back and acting like nothing happened (because for them nothing did). teenager who aged physically and mentally during the timeloop and now they're so much older than they're supposed to be. random strangers who were trapped in a loop together relieved to get away from each other at last, but feeling oddly bereft of familiar company. service worker who is pissed as fuck to have to go back to work

[zenfulmockingbird]

Some Miphvali doodles not sure I want to finish but here they are

[zenfulmockingbird]

Idk why but as a kid I used to get hysterically upset everytime I would imagine a gif of a rotating cow because I could never stop the cow from rotating no matter how hard I tried and I would be crying and no one knew why

[zenfulmockingbird]

I sometimes I wonder if the reason why some anti-gay activist want LGBTQ+ it illegal is because they want to feel that taboo feeling when looking at LGBTQ+ stuff and I don't mean just pron involving lesbians or Lewd involving trans people that people, anything sfw video or pic.

[zenfulmockingbird]

Mandatory AI I met Dorian. He’s part of the super secret ultra demonic shadow government. 

[zenfulmockingbird]

How I escaped the Right Wing pipeline