#‘why is it plagiarism to not write my own work and instead use the plagiarism machine built from scraping others’ work without consent?’

[werewolf-transgenderism]

keep seeing undergrads on social media saying “oh if a prof has a strict no-AI academic integrity policy that’s a red flag for me because that means they don’t know how to design assignments” like sorry girl but that just sounds like you’ve got a case of sour grapes about not being allowed to cheat with the plagiarism machine that doesn’t know how to evaluate sources and kills the environment! I have a strict no-AI policy because if you use AI to write your essays for a writing course it’s literally plagiarism because you didn’t write it and you’re not learning any of the things the course teaches if you just plug a prompt into the plagiarism generator that kills the environment, hope this helps!

#so many people on the internet like ‘why do I have to write my work myself why can’t I just plug it into the cheating machine’ #‘why is it plagiarism to not write my own work and instead use the plagiarism machine built from scraping others’ work without consent?’ #like. it is because you are not learning anything if you do not actually do the work assigned to you. hope this helps #I personally have not had AI issues because of how I structure my assignments #but it was a HUGE problem in my department last year. so we all have no-AI to write your classwork policies

[miyacults]

jjk men + where they keep a picture of you.

gojo, geto, nanami, megumi, yuuji.

cw: this is based off this trend! fully sfw. just wholesome talk about these guys looking at pictures of you everyday to lighten their day up <3 (or to mess with you, in gojo’s case)

⊹˚₊⭒ GOJO has recently picked up the habit of taking the absolutely most ridiculous pictures of you ever since Yuuji and the rest of the kids gifted him a Polaroid camera for his birthday. He even started to gather them up in a photo album he proudly shows to anyone who visits your home, and this alone would be just lovely, if it wasn’t for the fact that you’re fully asleep, or unshowered, or in the middle of sneezing, or eating—in all of them! He claims his favorite is one he took while you were actively arguing about him not taking out the trash the night before, so he decided that it was a great idea to capture the Polaroid with his phone and put it as your contact photo and the wallpaper to his laptop.

⊹˚₊⭒ GETO owns a big house and is the proud father of two precious twin girls, so the walls of his living room and a few tables are filled with picture frames of Nanako and Mimiko growing up and of course—of you, too. He loves the sense of familiarity and warmth it brings to his house, turning it into a home and making him feel whole. Geto also loves keeping pictures on his nightstand, sometimes he even go as far as to writing sweet notes in the back of them, declaring his love for you or how proud he is of the girls.

⊹˚₊⭒ NANAMI is a classic man, so of course he keeps a picture of you in his—very expensive, very posh—wallet. He really isn’t much a tech-like guy, as he prefers simple things and wishes to have a simple life, so he’s not one to be on his phone constantly. He doesn’t even use mobile payment regularly, instead prefers taking his multiple cards out of his wallet every time he’s purchasing something—hence why he put a little picture of you in there to be looking at him all the time. He also made sure to put one of both of you over his desk at work.

⊹˚₊⭒ MEGUMI’s favorite hobby is actually taking pretty pictures of you (unlike Gojo)—so you’re clearly the wallpaper on his phone. He has a whole folder dedicated to you, with your name and a little ‘<3’ next to it, and it’s flooded with images of you blowing him a kiss, eating and laughing on your weekly date nights, sparring with Yuuji and shopping with Nobara, and so much more. He’s the type to take out his phone any chance he gets to photograph anything you’re doing at anytime.

⊹˚₊⭒ YUUJI has a locket necklace with a picture of you and Todou in it… but it wasn’t really his choice to begin with. It was actually a Christmas gift from Todou himself, and Yuuji was really close to throw it away when his besto friendo opened it and showed him the smiley picture of you in the right side of the necklace. He grew very accustomed to it since that, but Choso’s been bothering him to get a new one where he appears ever since.

2024 © miyacults. Do not copy or plagiarize any of my work or share it in other social media platforms.

#⊹˚₊⭒ collection #jjk x reader #jjk headcanons #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jujutsu kaisen headcanons #jjk smut #gojo satoru x reader #gojo headcanons #gojo x reader #geto suguru x reader #geto headcanons #geto x reader #nanami kento x reader #nanami x reader #nanami headcanons #megumi fushiguro x reader #megumi headcanons #megumi x reader #yuuji itadori x reader #itadori headcanons #itadori x reader #jjk x you

[comicaurora]

I've started making my way through the playlist hbomberguy made of actually good video essays by queer creators and spotted a comment of yours on the one about the relationship between Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy, which was fun xD red in the wild!

Anyways, just wanted to appreciate how both you and Blue and you are very good at showing your sources! It's always nice to know that the people you've watched for years have good habits after an event like this, and I hope you guys are among the people that get some new fans after this whole debacle, because your channel definitely qualifies for "good educational videos made by queer people"

I'm glad! Blue's much better about listing his sources and follow-up reading than I am.

To be honest, I loved the video, but my imposter syndrome always flares like crazy when I watch an essay like that. It might be the ADHD or it might just be who I am as a person, but I feel like I've lived my whole life striving to make everything I do the best it can be, and still managing to fuck up and get criticised for things I could've done better if only I never missed anything. It's an actual gut-drop when it turns out a source I used wasn't trustworthy, or when in older videos I only went wiki-deep for some claims and didn't check every source to be 100% sure I wasn't being goat-fish'd. And this being the internet, I can get criticized at any time for things I've gotten wrong years ago, since it's evergreen online and to the new-viewing critic it's as fresh as yesterday. It makes it hard for me to stay proud of my work past the first moment of "oh I would've done that different now". There's a cocktail of complicated, scary feelings around this space, no matter how little I actually have in common with the bad guys of this scenario - it's less about the reality and more about who my imposter syndrome tells me I am. I saw several people saying that the video actually made them feel much better about their own work because it made it clear that accidental plagiarism on that scale is impossible, but if my anxieties listened to reason I would've successfully machete'd them out of my skull years ago. I just hope I never fuck up badly enough to deserve an hbombing of my own.

But my own stress aside, the hbomb essay exposed a level of laxness, laziness and entitlement on the part of these plagiarists that I think is almost incomprehensible to people who actually create for a living or even just the joy of it. How hollow do you have to be to take in someone else's writing and not consider it, digest it, let it reshape your views and then formulate your own interpretation on it, but instead to file off the serial numbers and pretend it's yours, trusting that the person whose thoughts and words you valued enough to steal will never be powerful enough to call you out on it? I go down research rabbit holes because I love the frustration and thrill of putting something together! How joyless it must be to skim the surface and borrow someone else's conclusions!

I've sometimes had people email asking for sources on parts of my interpretation of various myths, possibly in the interest of source-citing for school papers (a nightmare concept in and of itself) and with very few exceptions I usually have to tell them "the only sources were the english translations I used of the primary source where the myth was originally written, like I said in the video, and the part where I said I was conspiracy-boarding has no source other than my own analysis of the given source, which is why I called it conspiracy-boarding" and I was always a little baffled by those emails - half the videos are introduced like "this is The Prose Edda" or "this is in Ovid's Metamorphoses" or "this bit is Hesiod" so what else could they want - but seeing the hbomb of the week made me realize that truly original analysis might not be what most people are expecting from a "thing summarized." They might be expecting a compilation of other people's summaries instead.

#asks #not aurora

[sexhaver]

Hi hi. I think when people are talking about AI art and stealing by scraping the Internet, I’m not sure I’ve heard about compensation as much as I’ve heard about credit and the idea of plagiarism as stealing.

I think from what I’ve seen from my artist friends - and obvs I could totally be wrong that’s why I’m asking and curious about your take - a lot of the debate is sorta analogous to derivative works. Like, if I scraped all of Github for the code there and I used all these different libraries and bits of source code in my own code without crediting anyone to make my Ultimate Application:tm:, that runs foul of copyright even under some of the most open licenses. Now, this isn’t necessarily me endorsing our copyright system, but people see credit as important and that’s the sort of mindset I think a lot have with the idea of stealing and AI art. Citing your sources - if every bit of art used in DALL-E was instead a quote, people would be upset if you didn’t have a bibliography, right?

What do you think?

i think this is a very silly idea that falls apart as soon as you start considering how you would possibly isolate the specific works being fed into the generated output. also the hypothetical code-writing AI you mentioned literally exists and does not have a biliography. so.

[baeddel]

thismorning i've been reading some articles, posts, student guidelines, etc. about "plagarism vs. allusion" or "plagiarism vs. intertextuality", partially out of some anxiety about my own writing that contains allusions. doing so i found this article (click), which talks about plagiarism in relation to philosophy. he says that plagiarism in philosophy was common 'as late as Hume' and describes it like this: "philosophers would rehearse the arguments of those before them, often in direct, but unsourced, quotes."

i know that people do see it that way (there was controversy a while ago about Kripke stealing arguments from somebody else), but it still surprises me. in that post, a couple of parts down, about fighting, i rehearsed arguments made by Clausewitz in On War. Clausewitz talks about the difference between existential conflicts concerning the fate of nations and conflicts which are merely about capturing one or two provinces, etc. he also distinguished between a tendency towards 'total war', a full exertion of force, which is limited by the concrete factors of reality concerning the political situation, financial commitments, the geography, and so forth. then he says that the interaction between the tendency towards total war and the limitations imposed by reality produce the specific character of the actual war. i'm using these ideas in the post, and i try to flag it by using the same language; when i talk about fights which are and are not 'existential', and how specific fights are produced by the restrictions placed on them. i'm obviously thinking about one-on-one combat using the arguments i read in Clausewitz.

but i don't mention Clausewitz in the post. am i plagiarizing Clausewitz, so doing? i'm not going quite as far as the quote describes by copying whole sections, but things like the Kripke controvery were over something much closer. probably nobody would accuse me of plagiarism for it; but if, for example, i wrote a book where i went into the argument in more detail, and a reviewer noticed the dialectic from Clausewitz, even using some of the same terms, they might say: 'this hack writer is trying to pass off Clausewitz' arguments as their own!' and accuse me of plagiarism. at that point, they would probably have a good argument, pointing to those sections which i mentioned and showing the similarity in the same way, perhaps also illustrating it with quotes from On War's opening chapter. at this point, many people might be convinced that i was trying to pass off Clausewitz's arguments as my own. similarly, if i was a student and i handed it to a professor, and they had just the night before been reading about Clausewitz, they might recognize a few key terms and become suspicious that i'm cheating; after their suspicion has been roused they could find plenty of confirmation in a similar way.

in most of the articles, posts and student guidelines i read (including the linked one), the difference between plagiarism and intertextuality or allusion is handled by some version of this: authors include allusions because they want you to recognize the allusion, while authors who plagiarize don't want you to notice. however, in the case of philosophy or non-fiction, doesn't this kind of break down? i don't necessarily hope you notice that i'm borrowing the ideas from Clausewitz. instead, i'm writing the post to work out my own thoughts about it. and because i've read Clausewitz, my thoughts are influenced by the arguments that Clausewitz made. this is where the idea of plagiarizing arguments is problematic to me—isn't the entire point of reading a philosophical book that i hope i will actually start thinking that way? why learn the arguments if not to make them?

[haknom]

universe — kim sunoo

pairing: bestfriend!sunoo x gn!reader

note: saw these photos on my feed and thought of this idea while i was freezing my ass off // was listening to universe by thuy while writing sooooo

warnings: i don’t think i proofread but wtv! wordcount: 643 words

“Aw man! You could’ve made that,” Sunoo whisper-shouted, pulling your attention away from your notebooks. “See, that one was better.” He leaned back in his chair as a gush of relief rushed through his body.

You peeked at him while spinning your pencil between your fingers. “What?” You questioned with squinted eyes. “Oh, am I too loud? My bad, continue with your studying.” He flashed you an eye-closed smile, ushering you to continue.

The two of you went back to doing your own things; you were studying while he was watching his laptop screen closely. His fists were held against his chest with a focused expression plastered on his face. It was quite a sight to see.

“You know, I rarely ever see you this focus. What’s so entertaining?” You asked, placing your pencil down beside your notebook. “Oh, this?” He gestured towards his laptop screen while pressing the space bar as you nodded. “Ah, I’m watching a basketball game. It’s a new season and I didn’t get to watch the first match because of volleyball practice yesterday.” He said while turning his laptop screen towards you.

You examined the clip in front of you; two members fighting for a ball as the other team members scattered around the court. “You seem to really love basketball, hm?” You smiled at him while his eyes glistened. Sunoo nodded fervently with a tight-lipped smile.

“Mhm, I love basketball so much. The teams, the thrill, and the excitement when watching make me feel really good about myself. Oh, and when they make really cool shots! You know, the silent ones? Well, they’re not actually silent but there's a subtle swish sound. Man, I love those ones the most. If I were to say which one makes me the most anxious, it would most likely be the ones that bounce on each side, those ones are the worse.” He shook his head as you stifled a laugh.

“The rules are quite confusing at the start, but just try not to be fouled out, you know? It sucks.” He whispered as if it was a secret.

“You know a lot about basketball but why did you join the volleyball team instead?” It was a good question. He knew a lot about basketball and seemed to enjoy it a bunch but you were also confused as to why he was on the volleyball team instead.

“Well, yeah I’ve always loved basketball growing up. I used to play during middle school and elementary but in high school, it just seemed… more of a competition than a fun game to play. Not that it stopped my love for basketball, but I thought trying out a different sport would bring back that fun experience for me instead of being under pressure all the time. Let’s just say, it did.” He ranted as you listened.

You didn’t mind how much he spoke on the topic, it was fascinating to watch his exciting expressions and his nonstop hand movements to ‘emphasize’ what he was talking about.

“Did I say too much? Sorry if I’m boring you,” he awkwardly chuckled. “No! No. You’re not, don’t worry.” You said with a reassuring smile. “Oh, it just looked like it since you were quite literally staring at me with no emotion…” Sunoo rubbed his nape out of embarrassment. “Ah, was I? That was my fault, really, I was listening. Hearing you boast about something you love is really entertaining and also quite adorable.” You said with a smile, returning to your notes.

How could you say that so calmly and leave him in a flustered state as if it didn’t even happen? Slowly, he retracted his attention away from you, shook off the previous statement, and returned to the basketball match on his laptop.

Little did he know, your heart was thumping just as much as his.

© haknom 2023 - do not copy, translate, or plagiarize my work on other platforms!

PERM TAGLIST: @soov @redm4ri @ox1-lovesick @urszn @feeeli @taejays @hanniluvi @dakkisz @dimplewonie @ddenoudepression @xiaoderrrr @ja4hyvn @mmaplepastries @essmarye @w3bqrl @jennaissantes @yenqa

#kpop x reader #kpop imagines #kpop scenarios #enhypen x reader #kpop fluff #enhypen #enhypen smau #kpop smau #kpop #enhypen sunoo #sunoo enhypen #sunoo x reader #kim sunoo #sunoo #kim sunoo x reader #kim sunoo smau #sunoo smau #enha x reader #enha sunoo #sunoo enha #enha #enha smau #sunoo fluff #kim sunoo enhypen #kim sunoo fluff #kim sunoo imagines #sunoo drabbles #sunoo scenarios #sunoo imagines #enha fluff

[cowpokeomens]

Ayfuckingo, who’s stealing work👀👀👀 (Who thinks stealing someone’s hard ass work is fun? Wtf)

Yknow I thought abt deleting this ask and my post but I’m feeling feisty and fed up today, actually! This is not directly specifically at you anon 🫶 anyways read at your own risk lol

I’m not dropping names because I’m not a gossip blog, but I think the tendency of certain celebrated “authors” to dip into other people’s creative endeavors for their own work is gross and completely diminishes the whole point of fandoms. Like, this is supposed to be a community. Instead it’s turned into a competition that literally no one wants to be a part of where people say “oh yay, another _____ AU!” Instead of “wow, that’s awfully hyper specific and pretty flagrantly rips off of soemthing I’ve seen before?”

I think we, as members of fandom, have become soooooo wrapped up in the culture of needing to “consume content” that we disregard artistic integrity. We don’t care that the idea is stolen because we love the idea so much. I’m not talking about tropes (ie; enemies to lovers, grumpy!character x sunshine!character, fake dating) I’m talking about the actual creative thought that goes into making a fic. I understand loving someone’s creativity; I’m an artist, and I am constantly absorbing and thinking about art from other people. It’s inevitable that some ideas will trickle into your own work. But there comes a point where there is a clear difference between “inspired” and stolen.

I’m not trying to say this as some kind of writing authority - there are SO MANY talented and hardworking writers on this platform who make beautiful work leagues better than my stupid horny rambles. And like I said, I’m not naming names- the plagiarizers are fully aware of what they’re doing. But the way in which y’all treat fic is really disappointing sometimes. It’s not all about the next update, y’all. This is someone’s art. It’s not just a “good idea” in public domain for you to pluck and use in your own work as you please. It is someone’s art.

I just can’t help but feel like it circles back to a deeply ingrained need to devalue artists. If there was any respect for author’s and their work, this wouldn’t even need to be a conversation. Don’t fucking steal from people. Why do you value the work of an author so little that you feel it’s okay to take something they’ve worked incredibly hard on? Obviously you like it enough to try and pass it off as your own, so why steal at all? There’s a reblog button, you can add comments to let them know how much you love it. What are you gaining?

I’m coming from the position of an artist, not just a fic writer. This has nothing to do with my writing personally (as far as I’m aware, no one is trying to pass off my ideas as their own.) But as an artist, I cannot put into words how saddening and downright violating it is to have someone look at a thing you made, something you put your experiences and thoughts and emotions into, and think “it’s completely fine for me to take this idea and run with it.” That is insurmountably shitty.

Y’all are too damn smart to not notice. I think too highly of y’all as readers and creators to chalk it up to misunderstanding. You probably already had a fic in mind as you were reading this! I think we, as a community, really need to work on our intentionality and integrity with regards to art making. Stealing ideas is not conducive to making art or maintaining any semblance of community in fandom. Anyways this was long, I apologize for nothing, byeeeeeeeeee

[unrelatedwaffle]

Hbomberguy's Plagiarism Video, Fuck James Somerton

I won't say anything someone hasn't said before probably (although I am going to use my own fucking words jesus fucking christ) and I still have an hour to go (ANOTHER HOUR???) but as a humanities junkie, former academic, and person who has been plagiarized I have been brought to RAGE TEARS by this video. Do you have any idea HOW HARD research and writing is? Do you have any idea how UNVALUED it is? The people he stole from made at best PEANUTS and at worst NO FUCKING MONEY for their hard work. Do you even need me to point out how many culture writers and journalists have been put out of work in the past ten years due to literary or journalistic websites being shut down because they didn't generate enough revenue??? DO YOU? And these fuckwits waltz in and scoop up piles of money. Hbomberguy makes the larger structural points VERY well and VERY clearly and I am so fucking grateful he did it. I want to talk to this man's high school teachers, take a look at that business degree (is it real, even?). Not just Somerton, but the other plagiarists highlighted. If you plagiarize, seriously, get therapy and find out why you are so obsessed with approval that you would steal from people. You're pathetic. You need help. Get off reddit or video games or the internet and go do your homework instead of procrastinating or using the automated plagiarism machine, ChatGPT. Why don't you DO something with your life? If you don't want to learn anything, why don't you go work on a farm or do something that's actually useful for society but where you can't hurt anyone with your intellectual dishonesty and congenital laziness?

#plagiarism #hbomberguy #james somerton #rage #i'm so fucking angry

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Michael After Midnight: The Films of Quentin Tarantino

There are few directors out there as ridiculously praised and extremely controversial as Quentin Tarantino. He’s done nothing his whole career but release films that garner critical acclaim and massive fanbases due to the stellar acting and writing within his films, but at the same time he’s been relentlessly criticized for his excessive use of racial slurs, his excessive homages to the point of plagiarism, and his habit of inserting his fetishes into every single one of his movies. What fetishes do I mean? Let’s just say his films have a lot of sole, and it would be no easy feet to go toe-to-toe with how in your face he is about what he likes.

While the man does have his problems (don’t get me started, I’m here to review movies, not gossip) and his style certainly isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, I’ve found myself enjoying his work a lot ever since I was a teenager, and his films are what pushed me into checking out a lot of more obscure films in the exploitation genre; in particular, I’m a pretty big fan of blaxploitation thanks to Tarantino’s work, and I doubt I would’ve ever checked it out if not for his constant homages. I can’t really hate a guy who helped make me aware of Pam Grier, can I?

What’s most impressive is that out of his ten films there’s not one I would say is genuinely “bad.” Sure, there’s at least one I think is a boring, middling affair, and there are a couple of heavily flawed but still solid films, but there isn’t a single awful movie in his filmography. That’s honestly pretty impressive, especially considering the sort of weird throwback films he makes. After finally sitting down and watching Once Upon a Time in Hollywood recently, I decided it was finally time to bite the bullet and do what was a long time coming on this blog: Review Tarantino’s movies. And then I just decided, hey, why not review them all at once, as an homage to Schafrillas Productions and his director rankings? Oho, see, I can homage things too!

To be clear here, I’m only reviewing the films Quentined and Tarantined by the man himself; the “Tarantinoverse” is a bit more expansive than his own filmography, as True Romance (which he wrote) is canon and Machete, Machete Kills, From Dusk Til Dawn, Hobo with a Shotgun, Planet Terror, Thanksgiving, and the Spy Kids movies are all part of the “show within a show” side of his world, but those are all topics for another time. Right now, it’s all Tarantino baby! Now let’s get on to the actual ranking, and pray that I don’t put a foot in my mouth with these opinions.

10. Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood

I feel pretty safe in calling this Tarantino’s worst film. It’s not necessarily awful or anything, it has good qualities to it, but it takes every problem Tarantino’s style has and cranks it up to 11.

The film is long and dialogue-heavy, with lots of that classic Tarantino writing, but while individual scenes are good such as when Leonardo DiCaprio’s character is filming a scene with a little girl or Brad Pitt’s character goes to the ranch the Manson Family are holed up at they never really feel like they congeal into a cohesive narrative, instead feeling more like a long string of vignettes. This is especially bad in regards to Margot Robbie’s Sharon Tate, whose numerous scenes really add nothing to the movie but constant looming reminders that Helter Skelter is going to happen and lots of shots of Robbie’s feet. The excessively padded runtime is so bad that when you finally get to the part where the tables are turned on the Manson Family, a historical twist that should feel fun and cathartic, it comes off as too little, too late instead.

It’s really a shame the film is so meandering, because in almost every other aspect it really shines. Every actor is giving it their all; Pitt and DiCaprio are absolutely fantastic, Robbie brings charm even to her filler role, and every single bit part actor is fully committed and leaves a mark. Standouts include Dakota Fanning as the de facto head honcho of the Family when Manson is out and Mike Moh as Bruce Lee in a scene that is at once deeply disrespectful to one of history’s greatest action stars and also very funny. This is a film you can tell everyone involved gave a shit about.

But for me, it’s not enough for me to really love the film. I like a lot about the movie for sure, but I just hate how nothing ever really comes together in a satisfying way. Maybe if a bit of the fat was trimmed I would have a higher opinion of the movie, but as it is three hours of vignettes (even well-acted ones) is truly excessive. It’s mid at worst, but for Tarantino that’s still pretty shocking when everything else he’s done is above average at worst.

9. Death Proof

This is a truly underrated film, but frankly, it’s easy to see why it is that way. This half of the double feature that was Grindhouse is a throwback to films that were actually two movies spliced together, and it has all the issues that entails. The first half of the film is a more grounded, dialogue-heavy buildup to a terrifying conclusion, while the second half is a wild and crazy action and stunt showcase, and the two halves feel at odds with each other…which is by design, but still.

This might be a hot take, but I find the slow burning first half to be the superior part of the film. As much as I love Tarantino’s insane action films, Kurt Russell’s portrayal of the sinister Stuntman Mike is just just utterly gripping; he is easily one of the best villains in Tarantino’s filmography. The whole first half establishes him really well, building up the anxiety until he finally gets to show the girl he leaves with just how well he death proofed his car. He’s just so damn cool.

And then comes the second half where he’s reduced to a bit of a chump. And this probably wouldn’t be nearly as bad if the protagonists up against him were compelling, but they’re not. They’re a bunch of girls who are boring at best and relentlessly unpleasant at worst; the fact they leave behind one of their friends to an uncertain (but likely unpleasant) fate at the hands of a creepy redneck is especially appalling. Beatrix Kiddo they ain’t.

This is a wildly uneven film, so I can see why it didn’t find its audience right away, but I think these days it had garnered a minor cult following. If you can handle the flawed second half, this is still a really good movie with a captivating villain performance that more than makes up for its shortcomings, but I definitely can’t justify putting it any higher on this list.

8. Inglourious Basterds

Oh, this might be a controversial one. This movie is the same sort of beast as OUATIH, which is why I have it so low, but with one crucial difference: It does everything better. Yes, this movie is long and a bit meandering, but it always feels like it’s moving towards a final goal. Yes, it ends with a history-altering plot twist, but this one might be the most cathartic one of all time. And yes, there’s gratuitous feet shots, but at least they’re in plot-relevant scenes.

Of course, the best thing about the movie is the villain, Hans Landa. Christoph Waltz’s big American breakout is one of the most compelling villains of the 2010s, a charismatic, cunning, self-serving Nazi bastard who you really want to see get what’s coming to him. I might be inclined to call him the best Tarantino villain of all time.

I think what weirdly brings the film down is the titular Basterds themselves, and not because they ultimately feel superfluous to the plot; it’s the same sort of thing as Raiders of the Lost Ark, them being absent wouldn’t have changed much but we also wouldn’t have much of an exciting adventure. My issue is that Brad Pitt aside they are just not interesting or compelling at all. You really need to work hard to sell attempted filmmaker Eli Roth as the ultimate Jewish badass, and the film doesn’t really deliver. If only Adam Sandler took the role as was the original vision; we really were robbed. It’s all the worse because it cuts away from the actual compelling plot with Shosanna for these schmucks.

To be clear, I don’t think this is a bad film by any stretch of the imagination, but I find it falls short of the hype around it. I’ve seen it described as movie with a lot of great scenes that never really comes together to be a great movie, and I mostly agree with that assessment; there’s so much to love here, but also so much I don’t care about. It’s definitely worth watching but it’s also where you can see the seeds for the problems with OUATIH planted.

7. The Hateful Eight

This isn’t a Tarantino film held in a particularly high regard; it’s not exactly hated, but it’s not what anyone would call their favorite either. Its contentious nature boils down to something apparent right in the title: Every character in this movie is a fucking asshole. It can be genuinely hard to get invested in these people when they’re a big collection of liars, killers, sadists, criminals, racists, and rapists.

Now, if you can stomach these nasty characters, what you’re left with is “John Carpenter’s The Thing… but a Western!” And I have to admit as a huge fan of The Thing, this is a very solid reimagining of the concept in a grounded setting. I do wish there was any character to root for here, but watching a group of people slowly tearing each other apart in a claustrophobic, isolated setting is still fun to watch. I don’t think it’s nearly as good or insightful as Carpenter’s movie, but very few movies are.

This is definitely a movie I can see people hating more than the previous two films, but I feel like this movie is more consistent than Basterds or Death Proof. Those movies have higher highs, but this movie never hits the lows they do, and even if his character is a massive asshole Samuel L. Jackson is always great to see in a Tarantino flick. Plus that brief appearance from Channing Tatum is great, especially with how it ends. This is a very solid film, but “very solid” is about as high as the praise I’ll give it will get.

6. Reservoir Dogs

Tarantino’s directorial debut, and boy is that readily apparent. It does a good job at establishing hallmarks of his style, like the sorts of conversations his characters have, their love of racial slurs, non-linear storytelling, and his trend of casting himself as a douchey minor character. It does everything fairly well, and I’d go as far as to call it one of the best directorial debuts ever… and that’s about it, really.

Like this is a very good film with strong performances—Michael Madsen and Steve Buscemi being the standouts—but it definitely feels less refined than his later works with the same style. His sophomore film just completely blows this one out of the water, to the point it’s hard to muster up the interest to revisit this as opposed to watching Pulp Fiction for the hundredth time. It’s not that this film is bad; it’s just that Tarantino’s later films do what this one does better.

It’s definitely a good film, maybe even great, but there’s clear room to improve. Hell, there wasn’t a single shot of a woman’s feet in the whole movie! Tarantino was slacking.

5. Kill Bill: Vol. 2

Now we’re in to the really great movies. And yes, while it doesn’t keep up the energy of the first film, I would definitely call this a great movie.

Where the first volume was driven by action, this one is more driven by talking, and thankfully the characters are saying a lot of interesting things here (the standout being Bill’s media illiteracy in regards to Superman, which reveals a lot about his character). There’s also the reveal of Beatrix Kiddo’s name as well as her backstory, and there are some standout moments like Beatrix escaping from being buried alive and the tense final conversation with Bill. Overall, the film does a fantastic job at fleshing the story out and expanding our understanding of the characters.

Like I said, though, it just doesn’t keep up the energy of the first film. Budd is great and serves as a more psychological opponent, burying Beatrix alive as a way to test if she has the resolve to finish her quest for revenge, but both Elle and Bill himself are dealt with in a rather anti-climactic manner. It says a lot that O-Ren, one of Bill’s former lackeys, put up a grander and more impressive fight than her boss did. While I do appreciate the more philosophical approach, it’s hard not to be miffed when a duology called “Kill Bill” doesn’t kill Bill in a more grandiose way befitting the character.

Obviously, I don’t think it brings the film down much, and this is still a good conclusion to the story. I just can’t help but feel it could’ve amped things up just a bit, y’know?

4. Jackie Brown

This is probably the weirdest film in Tarantino’s filmography, being an adaptation of a book that lacks a lot of his usual style and features a lot of people he didn’t work with afterwards (like Robert De Niro and Pam Grier). This has led to a lot of people praising it as one of Tarantino’s best works for being unique among his oeuvre… and also a lot of people deriding it for how different it is from his usual style.

I definitely think it’s up there with his best works, but I don’t think it’s the absolute best. It’s sort of like how I see Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies; they’re great films (well, the first two anyway) but I can’t in good conscience hold them up as the best Batman media because they ultimately lack a lot of what makes me love Batman as a character. And this film lacks a lot of what makes me love a Tarantino movie; it’s a fantastic, realistic crime drama, but that’s not really what I’m watching Tarantino for, you know?

Still, its placement on this list should tell you I still see this as a must-watch. Starring Grier alone makes it worth checking out, and it definitely showcases Tarantino has far more range as a filmmaker than you’d expect.

3. Django Unchained

Right from the opening song, you can tell this is going to be an epic movie. Tarantino truly nailed the Western on his first go around, adding his own spin to the genre and making a truly stellar film. However, it’s not without a few issues.

The main cast is fantastic. We have Christoph Waltz as a noble and heroic abolitionist, an atypical role he pulls off flawlessly; Samuel L. Jackson as a sinister house slave who is all about licking the boot that treads on him; and of course Leonardo DiCaprio as a hammy, egotistical slave owner, a stellar villain role that should have nabbed him an Oscar. Even minor roles are great, with Don Johnson appearing as a plantation owner early on and Jonah Hill of all people popping up as a proto-Klansman.

You might notice I didn’t mention Jamie Foxx as the titular Django. That’s because, unfortunately, he’s a bit of an issue with the film. It’s not Foxx’s performance; he makes Django cool and likable, and his awesome trademark Tarantino roaring rampage of revenge in the third act sells him as a truly badass character. No, the issue is the narrative seems to seriously sideline him in favor of Waltz’s character, to the point for large swaths of the film he feels a bit like a side character in his own story. I don’t find it to be a huge issue, but it can be frustrating, especially since this is a very long movie and a few scenes drag on a bit longer than necessary. You really couldn’t give the title character a bit more to do until the last half hour, Quentin?

Still, I don’t think its issues hold it back all that much. This is an incredibly fantastic film whose highs easily overshadow its frustrating lows. Frankly, if any Tarantino movie deserves a sequel, it would be this one; I think Django has a lot of interesting stories in him, and a film where he actually gets to be the central character the whole time would be great.

2. Kill Bill: Vol. 1

This right here is pretty damn close to being my absolute favorite Tarantino film. Where something like OUATIH is all of Tarantino’s flaws compounded into one film, this is all of his strengths together in one film. Fantastically violent action, stellar casting with not a single weak performance, an awesome soundtrack, tons of great homages to the works that inspired it, non-linear storytelling used effectively, and more style in a single frame than some movies have in their entire runtime.

Frankly, I don’t have a lot of issues with the movie, though I kind of don’t like how all the action is front loaded while all the character insight and dialogue gets shoved into the second part. It’s nothing that makes me think less of either film, but I think maybe sprinkling more insight into who the Bride is in this movie and putting some more action in the second part would keep the sequel from feeling a bit anti-climactic. I also wish we got more of Vernita Green, the first assassin we see dispatched onscreen and the one who gets the least characterization; with a third film increasingly unlikely at this point, meaning we won’t ever see her daughter seek her vengeance, it’s a shame we don’t get at least a little more of a look into who she is as a person like we did with Budd and especially O-Ren.

Aside from that, though? This is Tarantino at his best, and Uma Thurman’s crowning achievement as an actress, one that cements her as action royalty alongside the greats like Schwarzenegger, Stallone, and Weaver. There’s just one film Tarantino did that, objectively, is a much better film, and I’m sure as soon as you saw this ranking you knew exactly what it’d be...

1. Pulp Fiction

Of course this takes the top spot. Was there ever any doubt? This movie is everything Tarantino is about rolled into one supremely satisfying package.

The cast is nothing short of phenomenal. We have Bruce Willis in his prime, we’ve got John Travolta pulling out of a career slump, we’ve got Uma Thurman and Ving Rhames in roles that put them on the map, and we have a veritable buffet of talent in minor roles, the most memorable of which is Christopher Walken telling a child the delightful story of a pocket watch’s journey home from war. There’s not a bad performance here. But of course the real superstar is Samuel L. Jackson, who gave a career-defining performance as Jules, the baddest motherfucker around (it says so on his wallet).

The great performances wouldn’t matter much if not for the great script, though. The dialogue in this film is unreal with how good it is, with characters having very odd yet also very realistic and natural conversations. Jules and Vince discussing burgers, for instance, is one of the most memorable sequences in the film… and it’s just them driving! Some of the writing is a little contentious (did you really need to have your character say the N-word fifty times, Quentin?), but none of it is really bad.

I will say Tarantino as Jimmy is one of my few issues with the film, but also an issue I kind of like anyway. His acting is a wonky and there is genuinely no reason why he should be spouting off all these racial slurs (even in-universe, since his buddy Jules and his wife are black), but the sheer audacity of the whole thing saves it. Still, I can’t help but feel the scene hasn’t aged as gracefully as a lot of the film, and the amateur performance from Tarantino sticks out all the more because he is standing right next to two of the most talented actors ever.

Another aspect of the film I think has aged pretty poorly is the gay hillbilly rapists, but I don’t think this aspect is as cut and dry as “hey maybe the white director who has little acting training shouldn’t play the guy who says the N-word.” On the one hand, having the only queer characters in your movie being depraved rapists is not a good look, though this was par for the course for the 90s. On the other hand, the movie treats Marsellus getting raped with the same level of deadly seriousness that a woman in that position would receive in a film. That’s a pretty bold, progressive plot point, especially since men getting raped (especially male-on-male) was and still is used as a joke. And watching the movie in a day and age with tons of queer characters in media does soften the blow a bit, because these aren’t the only gay characters you’ll see in fiction anymore. I think it’s important to have discussions about these sorts of archaic portrayals of queers in film, but I don’t think this breaks the movie.

In modern times the film has gotten a reputation as a “red flag” film loved by toxic guys, and I think that’s unfair; is it the movie’s fault dudebros fail to see the movie is a refutation of crime and violence? Think about it: The only person in the film who gets an unambiguously happy ending is the one who has a spiritual awakening and abandons his criminal ways to walk the Earth. Every other major character pays in some way for their continued violent ways: Butch goes through Hell and ends up in exile, Marsellus Wallace gets raped, Mia overdoses and nearly dies, and Vince does die. Hell, there’s an entire segment where Jules and Vince are repeatedly chastised for careless violence causing a huge mess; as you may recall, Jules’ pal Jimmy was not too keen to find Phil LaMarr dead in his garage, and had some choice words to say about it. Stupid people see the blood and slurs and take it at face value, but the narrative itself tells these sorts they’re well and truly fucked because when you live by the sword, you die by the sword.

Of course, my favorite interpretation of the film is that it is espousing the belief that Beatles fans are superior to Elvis ones, as an extension of Mia’s comment in a deleted scene that you’re either an Elvis person or a Beatles person. Vince is clearly an Elvis guy, and he is presented as an unprofessional, careless buffoon who causes numerous issues and ends up dying due to his own inattentiveness; meanwhile, Jules is vaguely implied to be the proverbial “Beatles guy” (he calls the robber in the diner “Ringo”) and escapes the film unscathed. This is even funnier when you consider that one of Tarantino’s first onscreen roles was as an Elvis impersonator in Golden Girls, something that implies he might be an Elvis guy himself, which would make the film the most epic act of self-deprecation ever.

This is one of the greatest sophomore releases from a director ever, and one of the greatest films of the 90s. This film frequently finds its way to the top of “best films of all time” lists, and with good reason; it is, to this day, just that good. I think there’s a temptation to call any of his other films his magnum opus due to just how acclaimed and pervasive in pop culture this film is, but it got that way for a reason. It is a damn good crime story with all sorts of twists and turns and plenty of stuff for viewers to ruminate on and interpret as they please. Hell, I thought I liked Kill Bill more than it until I rewatched it, but boy does this just blow even that masterpiece out of the water.

If nothing else, the film is incredible for one simple reason: Tarantino managed to insert his foot fetish into the film without it feeling as needlessly gratuitous as it is in some later films! Bravo, Tarantino!

#Michael After Midnight #Review #movie review #Quentin Tarantino #Reservoir Dogs #Pulp Fiction #Jackie Brown #Kill Bill #Death Proof #The Hateful Eight #inglourious basterds #once upon a time... in hollywood #django unchained #action #crime #drama #exploitation #grindhouse #feet

[verflares]

hey!!!! i LOVE your totk fic and adore the way you write and was genuinely curious as to what your writing process is like?? i’m still trying to get to grips with writing but im stuck in the endless loop of editing while i write so i end up never finishing anything 😭😭

hello!! first of all, thank you so much! i get so ^_^ whenever someone tells me they enjoy my work, words can't express how much i appreciate it now, as to answer your question, i would say.... chaotic LMAO. it's a little difficult to put it into words, especially to describe it because like... how You do things feels natural, right? but umm... i usually have an idea of what i Want to happen in the chapter planned out before i start writing, so i'll divide it into chunks. i'll usually put a little synopsis of the scene in each to help both guide my direction and remind me of what i'm doing as i write. as someone who actually also prefers to edit as i write, i feel it's been a good method in making sure i don't get overwhelmed! especially if i'm having a slow or bad writing day. as for getting out of editing loops, my usual go-to is to just... leave it and move on. i'll do this either by putting a little comment next to it (something like, a very loose reminder or even an idea of how i want the paragraph or interaction to play out), or jumping ahead to a different part of the chapter entirely and chipping away at that instead. here's a little example (from a snippet of the next chapter i'm still working on lol):

by the time i come back to what was giving me trouble, i usually realise it's fine the way i left it, or writing ahead has given me some new ideas of how to pad it out properly! i feel what's most important and encouraging for me, personally, is Progress - and that can be non-linear, too! as long as i've chipped away at the chapter in some form or other, i feel happy.

this is what i mean by chaotic, because it's a bit... all over the place LOL. i also don't do first drafts for example 💀 (but this is also because editing as you go makes it mostly non-essential imo) but i dunno! everyone's creative process is different, and if you find yourself struggling with something, it may just be good to either step back or just chip away at something else for awhile! you may be surprised at what your brain will come up with in the meantime

finally, if i could offer one more piece of writing advice, it's Reading. read, read, read! whether it be fanfiction or published works, nothing - and i mean nothing - will help you more than reading. exposure to other people's styles, their prose, will genuinely help you so much in your approach to your own work, and even ideas for what you're struggling with! and i obviously don't mean plagiarism or anything like that either of course. i just mean that considering what you Enjoyed about that creator's work will help you develop your own, and in the process, creating your unique style and process. it's the same for art and music - the creative process, especially if you're still getting used to a hobby, is filled with evolution and finding out what you enjoy about it. try things out! see what works for you! have fun with it, and remember that you are creating for Yourself most of all. (reggie fils amie voice) because if its not fun, why bother

#LONG POST I'M SORRY but uhhh i figure its a good reference point?? #genuinely i just wing things a lot. the more you practice at something the better you'll become #and remember tht Nothing will ever be perfect but thats okay! we are our own worst critics #ANYWAYS i hope this was helpful or insightful ?? even a little bit lol #if there's more i can say or clarify i will Try My Best #ask

[loser-brain]

If you have not seen this post goin' around about not giving permission to allow people to take your work and put it into an ai against your wishes. There's the post.

Let's talk about this user's close-minded brain that they left in the replies.

The fact that they believed they are saying "Facts" is pathetic. They even answer a question from anon who believes they are saying facts.

Hey come here, have you ever heard of... plagiarism? It's a fancy word for theft. Especially in a creative field mostly used in writing.

My fellow lovelies, it's that time again.

THE TIME HAS COME FOR ME TO SLAUGHTER ANOTHER BIGOTED IDIOT IN THE CREATIVE FIELD >:D

Ai aka Artificial intelligence, what the hell is that? Glad you ask, I don't know, but in simpler terms, it's code that replicates and learns. The more you interact with it and correct its errors the more it will realize and perfect its code. IT'S NOT ALIVE. It's simply following a code that involves something along the line like us which is growth.

Using ChatGPT for fun is alright. Using ChatGPT or OpenAi to finish a story that is not yours... is not alright. That is where a line has been crossed. A line that violates Fair Use.

And since the majority of AO3 users are not putting their work behind a paywall, it still falls under fair use.

OH but it's a fanfic, we can do whatever we like with it!

WRONG. Fan-fictions falls under copyright laws. So in other words. Y'all are violating our rights by putting them into an Ai. get fuck.

BOOM! BANG! AND HERE'S ANOTHER THING! Ai, in the US, have to have the permission of the original author to have their work used in the testing to improve the Ai ability.

SO GET FUCK AGAIN

Okay now that the facts are done. Like I'm serious, it's done, got any questions, shoot me an inbox. Now we dissect this person's close mind dumb reply.

FYI, everyone is like, destroying this person. I'm serious, oof I do not want to be this person. I still kinda remember the last person that spoke dumbness, but about art. Remember that person, damn, they really got my blood boiling at like... oh hey, it's 3 in the morning... This must be fate.

SO LET'S BEGIN!

"I mean alright but at the same time, Maybe it's a sign you should finish your fanfictions 🙃"

Damn, someone has a lot of time on their hand. And as someone who does has a lot of time on my own hands, I still can't fully finish a fic. Wanna know why, because I'm tired. Like there would be days where my brain goes somewhere and I'm left with trash. I'm feelin' trashy, I'm feelin' moody, I'm even feelin' lost. It's normal to feel empty and want to fill it but don't have the energy for it. So maybe instead of being an ass to people and forcing them to finish something they can't at the moment. How about, maybe, you should stop being an ass and let people take their time 🙃.

"Like, if a fic has been abandoned for at least over a year, I feel like it's ok"

Everyone, repeat after me, fan fiction is protected under the copyright laws.

"Cause like, you clearly aren’t gonna finish it, why should it be left unfinished?"

Who's gonna tell em'? Anyone? *sees you raising your hand in the back, ignores you* Alright, I will! So like, do you not have imagination? Like do you not just, lay there in the grass under a big tree, letting the wind touch upon your cheekbone, and just... dream about the story. Like, don't you just read a volume of a book and just, imagine what happens next. Once you are done reading that volume of the book, don't you just anticipate what happens next in the story? Don't you have those moments where you thought about whether a character was going to die or live? Whether they save the day or not? Cause if you don't then damn, that's sad. You're sad. Like shit man, I'm sad but oof, that's even sadder than me.

"Now I don't think anyone has the right to post that work anywhere cause it's not yours."

OMG, I'M SO PROUD-

"But getting an AI to finish a work that *you have no intention of finishing* isn't really wrong in my opinion."

I WAS SO PROUD OF YOU AND NOW LOOK AT YOU. YOU IDIOT. Once again, say it with me now, fan fiction is protected under the copyright laws. So in other words, THEY CANNOT PUT YOUR WORK INTO AI WITHOUT YOUR CONSENT/PERMISSION. god fuckin' damn it. So close, you were so fuckin' close.

"If you are gonna finish it, make that clear"

HOW!? No, tell me how. How the fuck is someone who is using their free time to write a fic is gonna make it clear for you to understand that is their work and they get to choose whether they can work on it or not. Huh? It's fanfic, it's one thing when a users ask the author to continue the story because that is a thing that writers do. There is a group of people that would take over the fic and finish it for the author if the author just does not have time to finish it.

It's another when a user just blatantly takes it and shoves it into an Ai because AHAHAHA IT'S A FANFIC IT'S NOT PROTECT UNDER ANYTHING. WRONG BITCH IT COUNTS AS A FANWORK. Therefore it falls under fair use and copyright.

Writing is more complex to tell whether plagiarism exists in it. But we're no longer talking about plagiarism if you are just shoving it into an ai machine. You see, that is a violation of OUR copyright. OUR fair use. OUR work.

Oh but what about intellectual property? Are y'all putting your work behind a paywall? no, then it's fine. You still have the power to protect your work. So instead of believing this person thinking they are spilling facts... do a simple Google search. Is fanfiction protected by copyright law?

It's fanwork. Therefore, yes. Yes, it is.

Just gonna casually edit this: The commentators have learned what they did/said was wrong.

This is not a debate post. I'm stating facts that your work is protected and in the US you got to have the author's permission to put their work into Ai tech/machines. If you don't have their permission then it's a violation of their right.

#rant #rambling #i'm back on my bullshit #I'm still writing a script I might add this into the YT but like at the end maybe... #writing #copyright #fair use #ai writing #anti ai writing #It's okay to use it for fun but literally going out of your way to take it from a fic is not okay #art #creative #creative field #I'm thinking as many tags as I can to spread this because writers getso many disrespect like god damn can y'all just show kindness toWriter #writer #fanfiction #fanfic #ao3 fanfic #Sorry fanfic taggers! I'm just your friendly neighbor spreading the love and educating the fact that your work is fully protected!! #I think that is all I can think off. If you have any questions. My inbox is always open... unless I turn them off.

[ohmeadows]

on the topic of being ripped off now that it has happened —

i don't get into fandoms to be the CEO of a ship or determine how a ship is conceptualized and written. i get into fandoms to treat it like a community, where we are all serving meals and enjoying each other's. it means mutual respect, it means commenting on works you read, it means talking with each other, both readers and other writers.

every time something of mine gets ripped off or plagiarized, it's like... why? you could so easily have talked to me; "hey, i love this thing you did, and i want to do my own take on it?" and i would go "wow that's so cool! link it when you're done!" and that would have been a good time for both of us.

instead the works i pour time and energy into are treated like pick and mix candy stations where people will take what they want and ignore what i've done. i said to a friend after reading an especially egregious one of what i brought up last week that it's like they took whatever pieces they wanted from a very intentionally planned pov of two characters, mashed it into one and flattened it without understanding.

it's exhausting. you read me but i'm not good enough for you to bother kudosing or commenting and then you take what you want from it for your own ends? i have to ask — why?

i wish this was an isolated incident too. it's not the first time, just the first one i got upset enough to make a fuss about it.

i get into fandoms to talk to and be excited about stories and writing with other writers. the last week i haven't been excited about it at all.

#meadows.txt #i don't know what to say lmao #i have been feeling like this for a while but this cemented it for me #why am i in this fandom if i'm just treated like some scary distant person

[andypantsx3]

would you consider it copying if the line isnt just shuffled around but clearly an homage to a particular quote. like it expresses the same sentiment and sounds stylistically similar but is different? I sometimes hide things and re/write something in the spirit of specific quotes and passages in my own work (I dont publish online) but thats more of an easter egg or allusion for myself than an attempt at plagiarism. im not sure if even someone who is familiar would catch it?

I don't think so!! Like I said, I think we've all taken inspiration at the line-level as well. And that's actually how human language works in general lol; you hear interesting phrases and internalize them and adopt them for your own use, sometimes putting your own unique spin on them!!

That's why I took care to specify that I personally become uncomfortable only when the whole fic or large portions of it read eerily similarly. I think that's the point at which it becomes clear someone has not just internalized some phrasing or loved an idea and wanted to play with it too, but instead is maybe cheating off another test paper, so to speak.

And again I'm interested in discussing what we all think are good boundaries to have but not fingerpointing at any individuals or holding ideas hostage or anything. If I thought we weren't allowed to take inspo from people I literally could not be here writing BNHA-verse fanfiction lol.

#ask andie

[moonnue]

It's recently been brought to my attention that people that are speaking out for me are being harassed. I'll be answering that persons ask below the cut as I don't want to fill people's feeds with more drama, but I do think it's important to discuss. There is also very helpful info on how to report on Ao3 if you have not done it before!

In any case, I strongly encourage that you block, report, and move on if someone tries to pester you about this. Be careful out there!

I am so, so sorry this has been happening to you. I just wrote a simple fanfic and it is baffling that something like this can come out of it. It really ain't that deep. I also agree with you! I can't believe the other writer and I are the same age like please i'm begging you to leave this childish behavior behind. It is so silly. We left this behind in high school.

Report Link: https://archiveofourown.org/abuse_reports/new

Thanks so much for your words of support and you're help. It truly means a lot to me. Again, I am so sorry you have gotten caught up in all this. Wishing you well! ♥

@softpastelqueer

Text version of images below:

Hey, sorry to bother you again (I know you want to move on from this), but I received a bunch of unhinged asks/harassment myself (including threats) both for supporting you/being against an obvious mass bullying campaign against you and for joking that Titanic must’ve also stolen from them. The Protag drawing Astarion really was done before both of y’all, so I’m staunchly with you there

Obviously, it’s ridiculous to claim the protag of stories being an artist drawing a character is akin to copy written intellectual property. It’s a really REALLY old idea and it’s genuinely ridiculous to claim ownership over that. Even more ridiculous to consider we’re all older adults. Shouldn’t we all be busy stretching so our lower backs won’t hurt??? Like c’mon guys this is silly

Furthermore, what’s even more ridiculous is to encourage harassment of others. Again, we’re somehow all adults? If their claims of plagiarism were provable beyond the vague hand waving away of now owning the entire concept of writing about artists drawing people, then why did they and their crowd harass me instead of trying to convince me? I am a rando who didn’t know either of you and actually found YOU through one of THEIR first posts spamming the BG3 tag with encouragements to others to “teach you plagiarism is not okay” aka harassment.

I am both an artist AND professional editor for novels, manuscripts, and the like. I was trained to spot real plagiarism. Not a single bit of your structure could be flagged as plagiarism beyond the same premise.

Now that that’s been said. They’re still harassing you (and me now I suppose) and so I recommend you and others to report them on AO3. They’ve created an AO3 post further encouraging harassing you and encouraging falsely reporting your story for plagiarism.

If you’ve never had to report anybody before, here’s what mine looks like

[IMAGE]

My full report says “This person (WanderingIsobel) has been targeting and harassing the other writer (MoonNue) and also encouraging other people to harass them and report their story under the claim it’s plagiarism to use the same generic story premise. Half of the harassment is on tumblr while the other half of the harassment is on here, AO3. The other writer has explained many times that they have never read their story and to please leave them alone, but now they made an entire AO3 post dedicated to encouraging people to report and “comment” aka harass them over a weird fake accusation. It’s making it hostile both for the writer of Portrait Of A Vampire and for readers in general.”

Link for the AO3 Reporting

But Holy shit I am so sorry you’re getting caught up in fandom unwellness the rest of tumblr makes fun of. Whatever you need, I’m here to help, including even venting. I am sorry You’re a victim of a mass harassment/bullying campaign.

#more fandom drama shit

[alexandraswords]

F*CK NORMAL

An overdue ending to a (un)well decorated drinking career.

Introduction

Friday, June 9, 2023 9:28 AM

Today is one of those days where I am just tired, and a bit bored, but mostly tired. I am exhausted. Mentally at least. I have really been putting my all into my sobriety to the point where my day revolves around meetings but im starting to lose momentum. I have a headache, the dog wont stop barking, i'm trying to pop the zits on my face. Basically being alone with my discontented ass self is not something I'm great at... yet.

I should meditate or journal or text another AA member. But I just want to sleep and be normal and relax. But fuck normal.

I thought drinking was normal. I thought my diet of vodka and water and the occasional box of cheez-its was adulting. I thought I was mature and well refined and socially acceptable because I drank, just like everyone else, because, you know, drinking is normal... right?

Wrong. Not for me. I am NOT normal. So I have to do abnormal shit to keep my addictive eating disordered alcoholic riddled ass self sober and happy. I have to keep listening to other people because me making my own decisions landed me in a crack den sharing a room with a friend I would consider a sibling, whom which a fought with constantly to the point where I dragged the mattress from our third floor apartment (if you consider that uninhabitable shit hole, an apartment) down out side below out kitchen window so if I jumped maybe the universe would send me a sign saying that it is or isn't time yet. Okay so I didn't actually do that, but I sure as shit thought about it... a lot. Like a lot. I mean i couldn't even barely walk to the bathroom let alone haul some shit down the stairs. Hell, I wouldn't even walk across the street to get my own liquor. I would bribe my roommate by telling him if he went for me and took my card he could buy something for myself. I just didn't care anymore. I hated everything. I hated that I had to be loaded to be able to walk because my shakes were so bad. I hated that I had to drink to even feel sober and functional and not hallucinate and vomit and dry heave bright green bile. And worst of all I hated that I had lost control.

My eating disorder and my alcoholism made my reality disappear. The food temporarily until my life became a cage, and the nicest word I can think of to name it would be a vomitorium because it was actually that repulsive if you could see inside the walls of it. The alcohol took control over me so I didn't have to deal with food, but also made it so I didn't worry or care about ANYTHING. 

So I guess this is how I'm going to start this ... whatever rant of words form a book. Where I'm at right now. Because right now is all I have. Yes, I am in full self pity mode, but if there's one thing I've learned from AA it's that I need to take action, and never have I ever felt worse after going to a meeting. So,lets go fucking make our bed, and meditate or some shit and get ready for today. So, yeah, Fuck Normal.

So, Why the fuck not?

I got most talkative in fifth grade. The english section of my English SAT’s, I aced. People (my boyfriend) seem to like my writing and have told me If I don’t do something with it, then they’ll publish it themselves… which I’m pretty sure falls into the lines of plagiarism but lets be honest here. I am probably one of the biggest procrastinators when it comes to doing something that is actually good for me. Why? The fuck if I know. Maybe because all I’ve known has been chaos and panic since, like,  forever, that when it comes to the real things, like happiness and joy and pride in work that I’VE DONE… well, I'm just not used to that type of thing.  But I figured, fuck it. I can write a book. All i have to do is elaborate on how awesome I am at self sabotaging and add in some very few lessons I picked up and am still learning day by day. Basically I’ve decided its time to just put all my shit in one bound piece of parchment instead of having to explain my life story to everyone as if its my first day with a new therapist. 

But alas, melodramatic Alex is bored and avoiding meditating, to keep her shit together and be healthier, obviously,  because that would actually be beneficial to my well being. So for now i’ll just throw it in one of the corners in the back of my mind while it slowly simmers into a pot of anxiety attack soup while I try and explain to you (briefly before the pot starts boiling) how fucking insanely delusionally fantastically fucked my life is, and how I got here, and why I wouldn’t change one second of it for anything. But I mean, there’s forwards and shit in books right? So can this be like a PS after the main intro forward? ‘Cause This sober bitch has to go meditate before a meeting so I can stay mindful in my sobriety and not add homicide to my list of criminal activities. (That was a joke) So for now, just for today, Namaste Sober. 

P.P.S- enjoy the buffet of garbage that hopefully is not similar to mine. But if you can and most likely will relate if you’re reading this (most likely because my clever title struck a chord in your twisted little heart) then just know, you're not alone in this shit show, but no one ever really puts the shit show on the ‘gram now do they?

#sobriety #clean and sober #addiction recovery #sobercommunity

[neu-apostolisch]

disaggregated thoughts on generative ai

under the cut if any of my friends are interested in my thoughts re. AI art and other usage of generative AI in creation of things. I am not set on these thoughts and i welcome conversation on the topic (if you know me, you have my discord info). i'm not trying to get into a fight on this, just wanted a place to organize my thoughts that have been floating around.

for simplicity i am going to refer to ChatGPT, Midjourney, other types of AI image and text generation as "generative AI"

General AI thoughts

Basically, the key problem most people identify with generative AI is that people just feed a ton of shit into it (without the authors' or creators' consent) to train the dataset. Then, that generative AI is used to produce content, thereby sidestepping paying real people for the genuine labour of creating that content.

Which is both (1) happening and (2) incredibly bad. (See Duolingo, etc.)

However, the thing that tends to stick in my craw about this topic of generative AI is that it's not the AI's fault that people are using it to shortcut labour, underpay artists (or steal their work), and deprive people of genuine compensation. That's a problem with the mentality of capitalism. It's like saying that photoshop facilitates art theft by enabling you to edit someone else's drawing to match your needs and then you remove their credit without commissioning them. That also obviously happens, art theft is super common (esp on Pinterest), but it's misdirected to direct the frustration at the tools that make it easy to steal rather than the people who are committing theft or using the tech to dodge paying artists.

Like, if I would have gotten a commission of my D&D character and instead I use an AI to generate a character image that I like, that's not the AI's fault, nor is it the fault of the people who use it for freeform creative output. That's because we live in a society that values art but doesn't value artists. (inb4 we live in a society). Similarly, if I want to use ChatGPT to write, let's say a fanfiction, it is still my fault for not valuing the labour of fic writers enough to actually commission a real fanfic from them.

Moving on from the labour perspective for a second, I think another issue is obviously consent for having your data input into these models. Having your work taken and used in generative AI without your consent sucks but it is just an accelerated version of existing theft and misuse of works. Tracing and stealing others' works, plagiarizing written and video material, that's all still happening. That's why copyright law theoretically exists (even though it usually ends up being abused by corporations). If I want to do a rewrite of your fanfiction but tweak it slightly for my own purposes, I still stole from you, but no AI is needed for me to do that and AI is just an accelerated tool to steal stuff. Banning and rallying against the use of AI is sensible, but its the unethical use of these methods that I think is the real problem, which we can't really legislate.

Use of AI in an academic environment

This section is edited from a response to my partner's articulated class policy on AI usage in a class.

This policy, roughly, is "If you use generative AI like ChatGPT, create an Acknowledgement section stating that you have used AI. Also, provide examples of your prompts and provide a brief assessment as to how useful the results were. Poor use of ChatGPT will count against your grade, so fact check the content and review the policy on responsible use of AI. You do not need to acknowledge use of AI for stylistic (grammar and spelling) purposes."

The class policy on this i think is actually a decent way of approaching AI usage in academia. I think your professor realistically understands that even if they ban the use of AI, clever (or really stupid) people are going to continue to use AI if that's what they want to do. Therefore, your professor has provided an "out" to integrate this into the learning environment by highlighting the concerns about attribution, responsible usage of these tools (plagiarism still happens in academia!) and encourages students using AI to do additional work to explain their usage of AI (provide your prompts, explain how the AI helped you, how useful was it, etc?). This requirement for additional work to be performed supports your professor's approach that users of AI should not be allowed to shortcut their own labour in writing the paper, and so those students will still engage with the topic academically.

If AI was incredibly useful for these students and basically wrote the paper, then that's a sign that the assignment is not a very good one, because ChatGPT is not a very good writer or analyzer, as many people have pointed out. It just strings language together in commonly repeated patterns and semantic constructions. Therefore, a research paper that is analytical and requires synthesis of your findings into a unique and interesting conclusion would not really be able to be shortcut by AI in a way that still merits a good grade.

Furthermore, this allows your professor to train themselves on the use of AI and the phrasing of it, which enables him to better detect the integration of AI into future assignments, and design assignments that aren't easily shortcut by the use of these tools. That will (ideally) make for a more constructive learning environment and better quality, more analytical assignments

#selfpost #my thoughts