lawyernovelistpersonal

[lawyernovelistpersonal]

Now, just hear me out here...

This scene ain't just a one off joke, it's hinting that something's going on in Skyloft. Something bad.

The fact that Sky is disappointed implies that every time they've had a visit from the postman he's had a letter from her. The reason this time there's no word isn't because she didn't write, but rather she couldn't write. I'm just saying the boys must have been in town for a while and Dink has been awfully quiet- sure he's been regenerating and all that, but maybe he's moving onto the next phase of his plan.

Maybe in a few chapters the boys will walk through the portal into a war-torn Skyloft destroyed to a level they didn't think Dink was capable of. Sky is freaking out, Warriors is having war flashbacks and everyone's worried about it being a multipronged attack on all their eras. Just a thought :)

Art credit @linkeduniverse

#linkeduniverse #reblog

[lawyernovelistpersonal]

Going to be giving this a shot over on @galenfeadraws!

Fan Joy July!

Coined by the sweet @isasan347 , Fan Joy July is an art challenge I've created for myself!

I will be drawing one piece of colored fan art every single day of July that corresponds to a scene in various Linked Universe Fanfics.

This challenge is meant to push myself to draw daily, give back to writers who make this fandom so much fun, and give others a chance to read something new they may enjoy 😄

I will be choosing some fics myself that I've read and enjoy, but I would love if others recommended their favorite LU fic. This way I can pick one LU fan fiction to draw for all 31 days. Feel free to self promote as well!

To recommend me a fic, please comment or reblog this post with the link so that I can see it easier. Please avoid sending asks if you can, just because I tend to get overwhelmed when my inbox gets full 🥴🥲 hehe

I'll be taking recommendations from April 11-30. After that I'm going to start drawing so that I can be ready to post in July! ( This is gonna take me a while so I need all the prep time I can get haha).

**I'm not asking anyone else to do this challenge, but I would ADORE if anyone wanted to join me! Even if it isn't for the whole month. **(I can be your excuse if you've ever wanted to draw for a writer but were too shy hehe)

I've also seen one or two writers interested in how they could participate. I think that maybe if there is an artist you enjoy you could write something for a drawing they've done? I know there are a ton of very talented LU artists in the fandom, so that could be a good challenge for writers 😀

--- General Notes:

Please note that I will only be doing 31 drawings and a recommendation does not guarantee I will draw for it ( I love you all, but I can only do so much)

I will be tagging my challenge as "FanJoyJuly" and will try my best to note posts appropriately

I will be tagging writers (if they have a Tumblr and I can find it)

I will be linking the story for each day in the post

I will not be releasing which stories I'm drawing for until I post them (for the DRAMA😉)

As we get closer to July, I'll create a master post and update it with each post I make in case people are interested in following along ❤️

Thank you all for the initial feedback for this idea, and I'm excited to get started!

#FanJoyJuly #reblog

[lawyernovelistpersonal]

The vast majority of Eomer’s “Men”:

My headcanon is that due to the rural nature of Rohan and its overall decline, a huge number of the Rohirrim were actually women in disguise, not just Eowyn. And that it was an open secret that only the royal line didn’t know about that local lords fielded women riders to bolster their dwindling numbers

#lord of the rings movies #reblog

[lawyernovelistpersonal]

As a patreon patron of @linkeduniverse, I get previews of new updates, but I'm also on board with the etiquette of waiting to share my thoughts until the whole fandom has access. I saw someone else suggest writing my initial thoughts in a post and saving it as a draft to be posted when appropriate, so that's what this is for Dawn pt 9.

Because I have a lot of feelings about this one, which I'm going to put in a bullet-point list.

Poor Sky, not getting a letter. I hope everything's OK back in Skyloft. His face and the little broken heart is so expressive.

Time's letter looks really long. I hope everything really is OK back at the Ranch and it's just updates of some kind, especially because he looks very serious about whatever it is.

Is it just me, or have I seen this face and this posture on Wind? It looks familiar.

Twilight 100% thought Time was going to yell at him and his expression when Time commented on his courage is cute. He does seem a bit defensive. I do wonder about "Perhaps my current power would disgrace the proud green I wear. Have I cast doubt upon myself?" I feel like the only one doubtful of Twilight's abilities in this moment might be Twilight because Time didn't question them and in fact pointed out Twilight's heroism. This might be a game reference I'm not getting, but in the meantime I'm reading it as Twilight having some self-doubt because he's lost some physical strength and ability and needs to continue to recover, but the experience has shaken him a bit.

She said something about Twilight in the letter, didn't she? (I'll be honest, my instant thought was that she'd said she's pregnant)

Not familiar enough with Twilight Princess to fully comment on this, but ouch.

The little tease about the special lady who's been asking for Twilight and then the reveal of Epona was so adorable and I love seeing Twilight laugh.

"Guys... come on, be normal" Great line, especially after Legend, Hyrule, and Wind chose Chaos rather than walking down the stairs like, well, normal people

The moment that really did stay with me was the reaction to Warriors saying he paid for the inn.

Honestly, if I were Warriors I'd be thoroughly annoyed (and probably pretty upset) about that and I'm curious why on earth Legend thinks it's so absurd that Warriors would have paid for them (and if it's doubt that he'd be able to afford it as what he says about Time suggests, why his first reaction is to bust out laughing rather than checking). I've not seen anything so far to suggest that would be out of character. Likewise, the fact that Sky reacts with shock (though not like he doesn't believe it) but immediately accepts that it was actually Time. I hope that gets cleared up soon and Warriors gets an apology and the thanks he deserves.

#linked universe #LU dawn spoilers

[lawyernovelistpersonal]

Wordpress is also involved in this, but it also has a setting to prevent third-party sharing.

From your "My sites" tab, there's a menu on the left. Go to the "settings" tab, and the "general" page:

Then scroll down to the "Privacy" section:

Hope this helps!

Automattic will sign a contract with OpenAI for Midjourney to learn off of Tumblr and Wordpress

Hello! Automattic, Tumblr's parent company, will sign a contract with OpenAI and Midjourney so Midjourney can learn off of Tumblr's and WordPress' art and other user data. :) (The full text of this article is copy/pasted in the cut below). You can opt out! but I truly cannot imagine a more idiotic or out of touch decision on the part of Tumblr's CEO.

First thing's first: When/if this goes live, opt out of this immediately. Do this even if you're not an artist. The more people opt out, the less valuable this contract is to Midjourney. in an ideal world, literally all of the active users would opt out, but if we can even get to 50% that's pretty delicious.

Second: Contact Tumblr Support. It's vital that you do this politely. Tumblr staff is not responsible for this decision and the point of doing this is to show the userbase's unwillingness to be involved in this, not harangue Tumblr staff. (Seriously, stop haranguing Tumblr staff). Here's a script:

Hi, I'm writing in to express my disappointment in Automattic's pending contract with OpenAI to sell user data. Midjourney is already embroiled in copyright lawsuits, and it is not possible to train it without compromising copyright, including violating the IP of artists on this site. I strongly protest this contract and will opt out if it goes live. Depending on the privacy terms around what user data is sold to OpenAI and why, it is possible I will leave the platform entirely. Thank you for your time.

Third: Download Glaze and start poisoning them prompts, my friends

Fourth: Stare into the middle distance for a second with me because holy fucking shit? How stupid can one decision be?

Tumblr and Wordpress are preparing to sell user data to Midjourney and OpenAI, according to a source with internal knowledge about the deals and internal documentation referring to the deals. 

The exact types of data from each platform going to each company are not spelled out in documentation we’ve reviewed, but internal communications reviewed by 404 Media make clear that deals between Automattic, the platforms’ parent company, and OpenAI and Midjourney are imminent.

The internal documentation details a messy and controversial process within Tumblr itself. One internal post made by Cyle Gage, a product manager at Tumblr, states that a query made to prepare data for OpenAI and Midjourney compiled a huge number of user posts that it wasn’t supposed to. It is not clear from Gage’s post whether this data has already been sent to OpenAI and Midjourney, or whether Gage was detailing a process for scrubbing the data before it was to be sent. 

Gage wrote:

“the way the data was queried for the initial data dump to Midjourney/OpenAI means we compiled a list of all tumblr’s public post content between 2014 and 2023, but also unfortunately it included, and should not have included:

private posts on public blogs

posts on deleted or suspended blogs

unanswered asks (normally these are not public until they’re answered)

private answers (these only show up to the receiver and are not public)

posts that are marked ‘explicit’ / NSFW / ‘mature’ by our more modern standards (this may not be a big deal, I don’t know)

content from premium partner blogs (special brand blogs like Apple’s former music blog, for example, who spent money with us on an ad campaign) that may have creative that doesn’t belong to us, and we don’t have the rights to share with this-parties; this one is kinda unknown to me, what deals are in place historically and what they should prevent us from doing.”

Gage’s post makes clear that engineers are working on compiling a list of post IDs that should not have been included, and that password-protected posts, DMs, and media flagged as CSAM and other community guidelines violations were not included.

Automattic plans to launch a new setting on Wednesday that will allow users to opt-out of data sharing with third parties, including AI companies, according to the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, and internal documents. A new FAQ section we reviewed is titled “What happens when you opt out?” states that “If you opt out from the start, we will block crawlers from accessing your content by adding your site on a disallowed list. If you change your mind later, we also plan to update any partners about people who newly opt-out and ask that their content be removed from past sources and future training.” 

404 Media has asked Automattic how it accidentally compiled data that it shouldn’t share, and whether any of that content was shared with OpenAI, but did not immediately hear back from the company. 404 Media asked Automattic about an imminent deal with Midjourney last week but did not hear back then, either.

Another internal document shows that, on February 23, an employee asked in a staff-only thread, “Do we have assurances that if a user opts out of their data being shared with third parties that our existing data partners will be notified of such a change and remove their data?”

Andrew Spittle, Automattic’s head of AI replied: “We will notify existing partners on a regular basis about anyone who's opted out since the last time we provided a list. I want this to be an ongoing process where we regularly advocate for past content to be excluded based on current preferences. We will ask that content be deleted and removed from any future training runs. I believe partners will honor this based on our conversations with them to this point. I don't think they gain much overall by retaining it.” Automattic did not respond to a question from 404 Media about whether it could guarantee that people who opt out will have their data deleted retroactively.

News about a deal between Tumblr and Midjourney has been rumored and speculated about on Tumblr for the last week. Someone claiming to be a former Tumblr employee announced in a Tumblr blog post that the platform was working on a deal with Midjourney, and the rumor made it onto Blind, an app for verified employees of companies to anonymously discuss their jobs. 404 Media has seen the Blind posts, in which what seems like an Automattic employee says, “I'm not sure why some of you are getting worked up or worried about this. It's totally legal, and sharing it publicly is perfectly fine since it's right there in the terms & conditions. So, go ahead and spread the word as much as you can with your friends and tech journalists, it's totally fine.”

Separately, 404 Media viewed a public, now-deleted post by Gage, the product manager, where he said that he was deleting all of his images off of Tumblr, and would be putting them on his personal website. A still-live post says, “i've deleted my photography from tumblr and will be moving it slowly but surely over to cylegage.com, which i'm building into a photography portfolio that i can control end-to-end.” At one point last week, his personal website had a specific note stating that he did not consent to AI scraping of his images. Gage’s original post has been deleted, and his website is now a blank page that just reads “Cyle.” Gage did not respond to a request for comment from 404 Media. 

Several online platforms have made similar deals with AI companies recently, including Reddit, which entered into an AI content licensing deal with Google and said in its SEC filing last week that it’s “in the early stages of monetizing [its] user base” by training AI on users’ posts. Last year, Shutterstock signed a six year deal with OpenAI to provide training data.

OpenAI and Midjourney did not respond to requests for comment. 

#avoiding AI

[lawyernovelistpersonal]

Source: Linked Universe Dawn pt8

It's a really minor detail, but I love the fact that Warriors putting on his scarf appears to be a process. In the third picture in particular, it looks like he's pinning it in place like a cloak, which makes so much sense with the fact that it stays in place and also reduces the chance it can be used to strangle him.

Just a nice detail :)

#linked universe #lu warriors #LU dawn spoilers

[lawyernovelistpersonal]

I've taken up drawing again.

Linked Universe Discord weekly prompt #215: Hyrule Week!

He attacc

He make snacc

He bring Twilight bacc

Based on an ancient meme.

Today's challenges: figures, magic (and associated colouring and lighting), complicated hand positions, foreshortening, folds on the blanket.

Things I'm most pleased with: Wild giving Hyrule cooking lessons. I think that's so cute. Also the folds came out surprisingly well.

Pencil: 4th Janary 2024

Coloured: 5th January 2024

#my art

[lawyernovelistpersonal]

A hypothesis regarding the discolored monster blood in LU

We will be working with the assumption that blood in Hyrule has the same general functions that it does on earth. Our heroes are shown to bleed red and seem to expect blood in general to be not-dark at the very least. Based on earth, red/hemoglobin is the most popular option, though green/chlorocruorin and blue/hemocyanin do seem to be on the table based on my N64 save files.

Bad guys like to have their bases in cool places like volcanos. If Dink is set up near a volcano (+10 points for aesthetic) he and his minions could be suffering from Sulfhemoglobinemia. Sulphur can bind to hemoglobin, causing the affected blood to appear darker in color. If this were the case, however, we would expect the dark blooded monsters to be weaker because their blood would be less efficient at carrying oxygen, and therefore this option is unlikely as the black blooded monsters are shown to be stronger than regular monsters. Also the blood wouldn’t be black exactly, but a darker blue-green, so this probably isn’t the culprit.

Having low oxygen levels in general would cause blood to appear darker (darker red, not blue), but just like above, this would leave the monsters weaker rather than stronger, and therefore this option is highly unlikely.

The dark blooded monsters are referred to as being “infected” and Wind even asks if they’re sick.

Our sailor is a smart pirate lad; infections can and do cause blood discolorations, but this is usually due to the presence of something extra in the mix (which is basically always bad/not going to give you a power boost) and/or the usual problem where the red blood cells are rendered less efficient at their oxygen carrying duties, causing a darker red color. Therefore, a straight forward infection involving a biological agent (bacteria etc.) is not likely.

Blood will oxidize when it is old, which could make it appear dark/black in coloration. This doesn’t really support being extra strong or even alive, but this is the option I think is most likely. Why?

Because magic. This isn’t news, we all knew it was magic already. The Bad Guys are being fueled by an evil dark magical infection of some kind. But why black blood and a power boost specifically?

Assuming that magic is a form of energy, I propose that their cellular respiration may have been magically converted to use the evil dark magic instead of ATP. Why? With a (seemingly?) infinite supply of anger and spite fueled dark energy rather than a limited amount of ATP, and also assuming that dark energy wouldn’t impact the electron transport chain like ATP and the associated energy exchange byproducts would, the muscles of an infected monster would never get tired. This addresses our key issue of explaining the power boost symptom.

While any of the other coloration causes above could work along with this idea, due to the citric acid cycle being eliminated from the picture (and the need for breathing/oxygen along with it), the red blood cells are probably just chilling in the evil darkness infused veins of the baddies, aging and then not really doing anything else until the blood is lost via fighting the heroes. This would explain both the dark coloration and why this symptom is directly tied to the evil dark magic and the associated power boost.

Anyway they probably just have discolored blood for evil dark magic aesthetic purposes, which is also cool, but it was fun to try to create an explanation.

#linked universe #reblog

[lawyernovelistpersonal]

Hi, I'm still angry about Amazon trying to turn Galadriel into a shitty YA romantasy protagonist by making her generic sword girl and taking away her entire backstory as one of the most powerful and revered of the Noldor and Queen of the Sindar and giving her a shitty enemies to lovers relationship with fucking Sauron.

#rings of power #reblog

[lawyernovelistpersonal]

My therapist just told me my problem is that I need to write more fanfiction.

#reblog #fandom

[lawyernovelistpersonal]

#tolkien #reblog #elves

[lawyernovelistpersonal]

There's a huge difference between redemption and humanization. I feel like a lot of "redemption arcs" aren't actually redemption at all, they're just attempts to humanize the villain so that they seem multi-faceted, but people read them as "redemption arcs" and think that that is meant to justify all the evil they've done before and negate whatever made them a villain in the first place. I think true "redemption arcs" are actually kind of rare because true redemption would take making the villain acknowledge their crimes, reevaluate their actions, actively choose to do better, and then proceed to make amends and become a better person, and that would this take more time than most stories are allowed to give their characters.

I've also seen people argue that a character has to be poised for redemption from the jump for it to work because once a character does something "too bad", they can't be redeemed. I completely disagree because redemption isn't justification or forgiveness, so no matter how horrible a character's actions, they could choose to become better, but because a lot of people (including writers) think redemption means "erasing the character's flaws and making it so they did nothing wrong ever", a lot of attempted "redemption arcs" just end up erasing a character's entire history or justifying every evil thing they've ever done. And yeah, in these cases, the only way to make a character go from a villain to a perfect cinnamon roll with no flaws *is* to have been planning it from the beginning and make sure they never do anything that can't be explained away later.

TLDR: real redemption arcs require a lot of self-awareness, patience, and growth, which are things that are rarely actually allocated to villains, and that's why real redemption arcs almost never get executed. The reason people think redemption arcs are overdone is because there are so many attempts to either humanize a villain that get misconstrued as redemption or attempts to blatantly erase who a character was in the name of "redemption", which is really just poor character development.

#reblog #writing #characterisation

[lawyernovelistpersonal]

I absolutely love all the facial expressions (shoutout to Four's "OK, why do you think I wanted to see you?" eyebrow and that enormous grin when Wild is holding the sword) and also Wild asking if Four was quadruplets this entire time.

Incidentally, I also appreciate the fact that Wild, who is right-handed, reaches out his left hand first for a handshake with Four, who is left-handed. That's a nice gesture on his part and a nice detail to include

Dawn pt. 6

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Archive/ About / Linktree

#linkeduniverse #reblog #art

[lawyernovelistpersonal]

#reblog #tolkien

[lawyernovelistpersonal]

Textile Works, by Nelyasun, reposted with permission

From Mother to Daughter

Rating: G

No warnings

Relationships: Vaire & Earwen, Earwen & Galadriel, Galadriel & Celebrian, Celebrian & Arwen, Arwen & OC

Characters: Vaire, Earwen, Galadriel, Celebrian, Arwen, OC (Aragorn and Arwen's daughter)

Word count: 5K

The arts of spinning, weaving, and sewing are passed from mother to daughter down the generations.

@tolkienrsb

#my writing #my fanfic #art #tolkienrsb

[lawyernovelistpersonal]

Whenever I think about or study history I have two primary rules to keep in mind: “It’s not simple, it’s never simple, there’s always a thousand years of context waiting to strike” and “people have always fundamentally been people”.

I have a folder called Time is a Flat Circle in which I collect evidence of humanity. Here is most of them.

#history #archeology #reblog

[lawyernovelistpersonal]

I am extremely flattered to share that Celia has drawn fanart for my Swordmasters novels! These are her portraits of Seri the Teacher and Maelli the Faithful and it absolutely made my day when she linked them to me.

Shared with permission. Please reblog, don't repost.

#art #swordmasters