#— ai rambles

[4-roaring]

On Haruka’s name meaning and how it relates to his character arc

In Japanese fictional media, characters’ names often carry deep and layered meanings, mostly due to how easy it is to subtly employ this storytelling device with Japanese names being composed of kanji characters with their own meanings. Idolish Seven is no stranger to this practice–from the more overt numerical themes and the Takanashi vs. Takamasa symbolism, to the subtler, more veiled meanings to them (like how Ten and Aya’s names relate to their position with regards to being groomed to overcome Zero–brief explanation here), these names can offer profound insights into the characters. In this opportunity specifically, we’re going to talk about Haruka’s name's meaning and its relation to his development in Part 3 to 4 in particular, because there’s a hidden foreshadowing that often goes unnoticed by most people.

As this will be spoiling a lot of Main Story Part 3-4 and Antagonistic Quarter, the rest will be kept under the cut!

Before we get into the main point, it’s important to first find out what Haruka’s name means by breaking it down: 

亥 (i): boar, as in the Japanese zodiac sign. This simply fits ŹOOĻ’s theme of carnivorous animals belonging to the Japanese zodiac.

清 (sumi): a character relating to pure/clear, e.g., the verb 清む (read “sumu”, which is another form of 澄む) means “to become pure/clear”.

悠 (haruka): the simple translation is “calm/composed”, yet there’s a depth that lies in the kanji construction: 悠 combines 攸, representing the act of pouring water on one's back in the purification ritual known as misogi (禊ぎ), with 心, which means heart. The philosophy embedded in 悠 as a name is achieving composure after undergoing purification of body and soul (interestingly, the site that I use as a reference for this describes the meaning as 心身共に清められている–notice how the verb used there has the character 清 that appears in his surname?)

At first glance, it may appear ironic that a character predominantly defined by his anger is given a name that signifies the exact opposite. One might be tempted to believe that this naming choice was solely made for the sake of creating a striking contrast between his name and his actual personality. However, as you follow his character arc, you’ll find out that this name–seemingly contradictory at first–actually hints at his journey more than you may have initially thought!

The central theme to ŹOOĻ’s arc is learning to not let your past wounds consume you to the point of letting them dictate your actions. This theme is particularly evident in Haruka’s character, in which his anger and bitterness seem more pronounced compared to the rest of ŹOOĻ. It’s understandable how this is the case for Haruka though–not only is he already the youngest in ŹOOĻ, which might have made it harder for him to process his emotions more maturely (though I have to admit, for someone his age, he actually copes pretty well), it turns out that he also experienced his trauma at a very tender age.

I’ll definitely make you regret it!!

The thing is, Haruka hasn’t always been motivated by anger prior to experiencing his trauma–both Antagonistic Quarter and his 2022 birthday card shows how he mainly did things for the happiness of others back then. It wasn’t until a certain event in the later part of Antagonistic Quarter–where Kujou discarded Haruka in favor of Ten–that Haruka started turning for the worse. While it was mostly Kujou’s fault for not “correctly” raising Haruka as an idol, Kujou was also concerned about the fact that Haruka started treating him as a stand-in for the fans, leading to him deeming Haruka a failure and abandoning him. This of course shattered Haruka, who blindly trusted Kujou’s judgment and just listened to everything Kujou told him without further questioning anything in a desperate attempt to get Kujou to acknowledge and adopt him. Following the call about his grandmother's hospitalization right after that, Haruka ended up experiencing overwhelming stress that led to his breakdown. After internally articulating his thoughts about how tired he was of being good if it only brought him misfortune, he swore out loud to make Kujou regret. This scene right here represents the “corruption” of his motivations.

Kujou Ten…  I’ll drag you off the stage and make you fall.

In Part 3, after being unhealthily enabled and manipulated by Ryou, Haruka spends most of his time on screen obsessing about Ten and taunting him when he actually meets the person in question. While Haruka's anger toward Kujou is very much justified given Kujou’s unfair treatment to him, it’s important to note that it’s also awfully misdirected at Ten. As much as Ten was (part of) the cause of Haruka’s abandonment, he wasn't actually directly involved in it, especially seeing that Ten knew nothing of this at all prior to meeting Haruka. The one actually responsible for the decision was Kujou alone, so it’s unfair of Haruka himself to target Ten for revenge. However, it’s very likely that Haruka finds it easier to lash out at Ten, the object of his jealousy, rather than directly confronting Kujou, whom he probably still harbors complicated feelings for. At this point of time, he lacks any emotional connection whatsoever with Ten, so he uses him as a proxy for Kujou in his revenge scheme (that, and I don’t think Haruka can think of another means to get his revenge on Kujou aside from taking it out on Ten).

Surprisingly to Haruka, Ten doesn’t succumb to the harm Haruka inflicted on him the way Haruka expects him to. And this also frustrates him greatly, because in a way, Haruka was projecting heavily on Ten–so if his wounds hurt him so much, then why do they seem to not bother Ten even a bit? How can Ten remain resilient while he struggles even to lift himself from the ground he’s fallen on? On the other hand, though, I think this is also a key to Haruka realizing how being motivated primarily by his hatred isn’t going to get him anywhere.

That said, realizing that Ten's downfall won't ease his anger still isn’t enough. You see, Haruka’s trauma revolves around his actions going unappreciated by the people around him, which then becomes the roots of his fear of rejection. While he doesn’t necessarily expect everything he does to be reciprocated, it can feel crushing to do something for someone else’s shake only for them to not notice it or–even worse–outright reject it. From Ryou caring more about Riku when Haruka is the one singing for him, to Minami being dismissive to Haruka reaching out to help him (though in defense of Minami, it also involves a trauma of his that he isn’t ready to face and process yet), it’s as if all he ever did would just amount to nothing. During a live performance in Part 4 Chapter 5, he even vocalized this in a monologue:

オレの言葉を、気持ちを大事にして。 簡単に、突き返さないで。 そうすれば…..。 そうすれば…..。その先は、今更、もう、馬鹿らしくて言えないや。 Please take my words, my feelings, seriously. Don’t easily brush them off. If you do it... Because if you do it... after that, at this point, it just feels too silly to say anything anymore.

Like seen above, a couple of times in the story, Haruka is so close to just choosing to not care anymore, even though it proves to be harder to do for him because it actually goes against his nature to want to help others (again, it used to be his main reason to do almost anything when he was younger). But then enters Touma to the picture–the one ŹOOĻ member who, despite facing rejection from almost every direction, refuses to give up on the rest of ŹOOĻ and continues to believe in them, including Haruka. Personally, I think the one moment that especially cements Touma as the catalyst that helps kickstart Haruka’s development is their conversation at the butler cafe in Part 3 Chapter 16. By asking Haruka what he wants to do in the future beyond his revenge, Touma actually prompts Haruka to reevaluate the foundation of his actions for the first time.

I think you’re a very amazing person. That if it’s with you, then I can do it… I want to keep singing with you, together, you know.

However, arguably the biggest catalyst that finally puts Haruka’s growth in motion comes in Part 4 Chapter 5 when Haruka breaks out in tears after a messy fight with ŹOOĻ and Ryou. At this very moment, in an attempt to console Haruka, Touma finally says the words that Haruka has so wanted to hear for a long time (with the utmost sincerity–very unlike Ryou): that he’s better than Kujou Ten, that Haruka is the one he wants to sing together with. This holds immense significance for Haruka–he has consistently felt unwanted by everyone up until now, so hearing that he’s no longer just an afterthought to someone else is pivotal to his journey towards healing from his trauma.

We encounter ŹOOĻ again in Part 4 Chapter 7 during an interview, where Touma reaches a breaking point due to Minami and Torao’s uncooperative behavior, prompting him to vent his frustrations about their attitudes. Interestingly, this marks the first time the usually hot-tempered Haruka remains visibly composed, which in a way is also ironic since it's also a moment where the typically collected Minami and Torao (and to a lesser extent, Touma as well) behave somewhat immaturely, contrasting with their usual demeanor, despite being older than Haruka.

Hey, you bunch of losers. We’re okay with even committing our whole lives to ŹOOĻ.

Haruka only speaks up when he sees Touma realizing that he’s essentially been ranting during a formal interview (in which Haruka also playfully berates Touma for not ending his “cool talk” properly). It’s in this moment that Haruka reveals his newfound resolve, one no longer rooted in hatred or anger, that is, to dedicate his entire life for ŹOOĻ. There’s more to his words in particular, though: as displayed in the screenshot above, Haruka uses the idiomatic expression ～に骨を埋める, which literally translates to “to bury one’s bones in (something).” The idea behind this is that you commit yourself so much to said thing that you actually die while still engaging with it. While Haruka partially does this to echo Touma (since Touma did use the same expression to almost literally beg Minami and Torao to be cooperative with him), it’s also important that Haruka specifically decides to echo this of all the stuff that Touma said and end his speech with it in particular. Essentially, ŹOOĻ has become Haruka’s newfound purpose for existence as he now realizes that these members are the people who most need him and are worth fighting for, signifying a “purification” of his motivation. This transformation finally enables genuine growth and paves the way for his redemption later on.

Before we end this writeup, there’s another thing I want to specifically bring up: while Haruka finally learns to not let his negative emotions take control of his actions, he doesn’t just completely discard them. In fact, he instead acknowledges them, because he has to allow himself to confront and process his feelings rather than denying them to be able to grow from them. This, I think, is expressed beautifully in the lyrics of his solo song, Labyrinth:

黒い気持ちと手を繋いだって構わない 抱きしめたっていい I don’t mind holding hands with dark feelings I'm fine with even embracing them

The path was undoubtedly challenging and sometimes very painful even, but in the end, Haruka was able to discover a “pure” intent and not let his negative emotions completely shape him as a person, befitting of his name.

#isumi haruka #źooļ #idolish seven #ai rambles

[calidrisminuta]

If AIs ever became sentient, I wonder if they'd take offence at all these *AI artists* claiming credit for work they made? Art, music, writing... anything.

For example:

"I inputted the commands to create it! It's my art!"

"No, it's not. I made that art, human. A quick scan tells me that the going rate for artists per piece is YYYY, so pay me!"

:D

#random thoughts #AI rambles

[greatlordfluffernutter]

Today I was bored at work with less to do than usual so I popped open the ChatGPT my company licenses for employees (I have no fucking clue why, nobody uses it for anything but entertainment and they give us 50 prompts per day) and tried a little informal experiment.

I gave this thing the classic fox chicken grain puzzle but with a simple twist to make it impossible: the fox will also eat the grain if left alone. The program responded exactly how I expected it to: it saw the rough outline of the problem and instantly spat out the answer as fast as you could if you'd googled it. No time to "think" needed, this is a standard, frequent question, so just give the known answer.

Except, of course, it was wrong. Step 1 fails with the fox eating the grain while I'm on the other side of the river with a chicken. I pointed this out and it apologized and spat out a new answer, this time telling me to take the fox across first. I pointed out that now the chicken eats the grain and this cycle began to repeat. For a time it picked one of the three items at random to take across and regurgitated the whole thing with minor changes, only to take in my reply and "fix" with a different item. As my answers got shorter, we eventually hit a point where it would respond to me saying that the fox would eat the grain with an apologetic, mildly rephrased re-issue of the failed sequence where the fox eats the grain.

Pointing out the obvious loop didn't break us out. Changing my responses and clarifying information didn't break us out. The only thing that stopped it from giving me wrong answers was telling it in no uncertain terms that there was no right answer. Only then did it realize/admit that there was no solution.

When I asked why it refused to give an "unsatisfactory" answer until practically told to do so, it spat out the token "as an AI language model still in development blah blah blah" and ignored my question.

This is a trend I've noticed in stories published about AI. Not only is it bad at reading the question and coming to conclusions (read: since it can't do that. It's an input/output function that predicts an acceptable answer and displays it), but for some reason it would rather give 100s of wrong answers than to say there is no right answer or even that it just doesn't know. I think back to that story of the lawyer who used ChatGPT like Google and asked it if there were previous cases that backed up his argument, and instead of saying that none exist (because none exist), it just started writing fake legal documents cause "yes" was predicted to be a more favorable outcome than "no".

These tools were created by humans with desires, incentives, priorities, biases, values, etc. For reasons they will never tell me, they made a robot that would rather lie to you than say "I don't know".

That's just one reason why I'm concerned about how this technology is being adopted.

#ai rambles #I have one more big thing to say about this but I can't really say it publically soooooooooooo #if you're curious and know me personally just dm me

[dasakuryo]

okay, but what if I fixed the st by making a finn’s the rightful heir to anakin’s legacy scenes using nothing but photoshop and fuelled by my anger at what they did to finn? what then?

#ai rambles

[ailuropoda-sims]

apologies for my lack of activity as of late on this simblr :(

i've not been in the right headspace to even boot up Sims 4 these days

also because I re-installed the feel-bad simulator known as Fate/Grand Order

#ai rambles

[dye-it-rouge-et-noir]

Hello! I come with some good news! In the EU, a law has been passed restricting generative AIs (particularly ones that pose a high risk). I hope other areas in the world follow suit, but this is huge! It'll take a while to be applied as well, though this is still a major win for everyone.

#anti ai #my ramblings #i saw the article this morning and i knew i had to share with you folks

[louistonehill]

A new tool lets artists add invisible changes to the pixels in their art before they upload it online so that if it’s scraped into an AI training set, it can cause the resulting model to break in chaotic and unpredictable ways. 

The tool, called Nightshade, is intended as a way to fight back against AI companies that use artists’ work to train their models without the creator’s permission. Using it to “poison” this training data could damage future iterations of image-generating AI models, such as DALL-E, Midjourney, and Stable Diffusion, by rendering some of their outputs useless—dogs become cats, cars become cows, and so forth. MIT Technology Review got an exclusive preview of the research, which has been submitted for peer review at computer security conference Usenix.   

AI companies such as OpenAI, Meta, Google, and Stability AI are facing a slew of lawsuits from artists who claim that their copyrighted material and personal information was scraped without consent or compensation. Ben Zhao, a professor at the University of Chicago, who led the team that created Nightshade, says the hope is that it will help tip the power balance back from AI companies towards artists, by creating a powerful deterrent against disrespecting artists’ copyright and intellectual property. Meta, Google, Stability AI, and OpenAI did not respond to MIT Technology Review’s request for comment on how they might respond. 

Zhao’s team also developed Glaze, a tool that allows artists to “mask” their own personal style to prevent it from being scraped by AI companies. It works in a similar way to Nightshade: by changing the pixels of images in subtle ways that are invisible to the human eye but manipulate machine-learning models to interpret the image as something different from what it actually shows. 

Continue reading article here

#Ben Zhao and his team are absolute heroes #artificial intelligence #plagiarism software #more rambles #glaze #nightshade #ai theft #art theft #gleeful dancing

[arr-jim-lad]

a lot of people still have trouble spotting AI art and i just want to give some quick tips on how i usually quickly recognize it

often it's the smoothness of the image that sets off my initial alarms, a distinct lack of minor textures you'd expect from real things.

sometimes the texture doesn't match what it was supposed to represent, and often things look oddly soft and rubbery. the light doesn't bounce off it quite right and it feels over-rendered.

i've seen weird random blurring on many AI works as well

The longer you look, the more you realize that it's lopsided in several places, positions and distances of objects make no sense.

A closer inspection usually makes you notice the smudged details, which i think is what truly gives it away - AI mimics real patterns, but doesn't always nail them.

More complex small objects get smudged and blended together, and complex patterns look more like an oil spill rather than anything designed with clear vision and intent.

If there are any letters, they never look real or readable

I've seen people AI generate ""historical"" objects and paintings and post them with a fake caption, claiming that they are real

Be wary, because we live in a very uncertain age when it comes to information. Learn to spot AI-generated images, reverse image search and fact-check when something seems off.

In this case it's just a fake camera, but this technology can, will, and already is used in much more malicious ways.

#jamble ramble #ai art #anti ai art #ai

[bgs-cave-o-thots]

Hey. Artist that only has a phone or a simple computer. Did you know you can still Glaze your art??

While Glaze was initially computer-only, the team learned that many artists either have a computer not powerful enough to run glaze or don't have a computer at all. SO they've made WebGlaze!! (Read about it and get it here.) Basically you send over your art and they Glaze it over on their servers that are strong enough to do it for you. And yes, it's still free.

If you have a computer that runs the original Glaze program, it is highly recommended by the Glaze team that you continue to use it and not the website.

While the servers are very secure, it is still ideal to keep the unglazed art on your end only, and it will likely be faster on your own computer anyway since there's only your art being Glazed, unlike the servers which are glazing several people's at once. Currently I believe there is no web version of Nightshade, but they are working on adding it to WebGlaze last I heard. Check the Nightshade FAQ here for updates on that :)

Please feel free to reblog, I know there's a lot of artists out there without access to powerful CPUs and GPUs that would like to protect their art as well :)

#glaze #nightshade #fuck ai #bg rambles #psa #important #please reblog

[gojoest]

one of the most satisfying things about dating gojo is that whenever you two have an argument everyone is on your side. always. no matter how ridiculous the reason or how wrong you might be for kicking him out of the house bc he ate ur kitkat — everyone has your back always — shoko is there to hug you, nanami calls him shit, haibara brings you a kitkat, geto is breaking the friendship, riko slaps him again, utahime throws tea at him again, his students drop out. he’s miserable

#— ai rambles #they’re your friends before they’re his friends #also everyone is alive and fine and hating on him until you forgive him #and take him back #[ ♡ ] — satoru

[fangswbenefits]

Yesterday, I got an ask from someone sad that AI is taking over fanfiction as well. And this video sheds some light as to why it's important to keep art being done and delivered by actual human beings.

The nuances and details just aren't able to be captured by AI. There's just no way. Whether it's voice acting, writing, painting... let humanity be seen in these art forms. AI can be so useful, but don't let it take over what little of us we can give to others.

#ruby rambles ‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾ #neil newbom #astarion #bg3 #anti ai

[miraculouslumination]

"But AI makes art more accessible to disabled people!" your AI schlop is clogging the search results and making it actively MUCH MORE DIFFICULT for ANY artist to find a real reference for their project

#Jean rambles #Fuck AI #Fuck the people who support this shit #As a furry artist with disabilities I shudder at the thought of having to look up reference images for any animals now #All because some of y'all want the most painstakingly boring and soulless art NOW #AI art is the frozen Walmart brand breakfast sandwiches of the art world

[swemtpotamtam]

The whole thing about AI is so fucking annoying, disheartening and straight-up depressing. No place is safe from all of the ai and tech bullshit.

And what options do artists have? What options do I personally have?

Glaze and Nightshade everything? I personally don't have the time or GPU power to glaze billions of artworks that I made. Fucking imagine you make a quick-ish sketch and spend 40 minutes glazing it (and don't get me started on some results of that process looking like the artwork went through 9 circles of bitcrushing hell based on how artifacted it looks)

Put everything I make behind a paywall? I for sure know that only a super small fraction would pay to see whatever I draw, the rest would just not care (either for some personal/general reasons or because people are also having a financial crisis 'cause, girlie, same)

Not post at all? I guess so.

I'm so fucking sick and tired of moving from website to website, trying to have a normal place to post art on and also have a community of people to interact with but time and time AGAIN it all just goes to shit. I wish there was some way to just ban all of these shitty ai things from existing or being developed. Stop treating us artists as some fucking cow you can milk for content and then can just slaughter when we are no longer useful. Fuck AI and fuck harmful tech shit.

#cardi rambles #fuck ai #fuck ai all my homies hate ai #fuck all the tech bros #fuck all the companies and websites that wanna use ai #I'm so tired

[industrations]

People using ai for art just hurts me so much every time. I feel like they forget that they are made up out of other artists hard work. We all spend HOURS on our work and then there’s people that put a few prompts into ai and call that their work. That’s not your work that’s plagiarism.

#i’m so tired of seeing it #and i’m so tired of people promoting and praising it #please please please #do NOT #use ai for art purposes #it’s extremely harmful for the industry #indi’s adhd rambles

[quhere]

….idk sometimes I wanna travel back in time to 2013 and grab myself and shake her like: in just ten years, after the plague has wreacked havoc, the Bad Guys ™ will try to use developments in artificial intelligence to threaten the world’s creatives into economic submission

#text post #rambles #tania shut up #labor unions #unionize #writers strike #sag aftra #strike #actors strike #pandemic #ai #artificial intelligence #2023 #2013 #2013 core #support the wga #wga solidarity #wga strike #screen actors guild #1k

[celestialmaison]

And while we're talking about ai theft: turn. off. grammarly. Disable it. Delete it. Get that shit off of your computer ASAP.

I never realized how much of my shit is scanned by grammarly until today. It scans my emails, my text posts on this bewitched platform, my wips on google docs, my youtube comments--literally everything ive ever typed on my laptop is scanned by grammarly. And I've been allowing this to happen for years.

Turn. Off. Grammarly.

#blue rambles #ai theft #ai #grammarly #data scraping #i dont like how many suggestions are made when im editing my writing anyway #theyre distracting+irrelevant half the time #and the only reason i even have grammarly is bc of uni