#heres the thing about writing image descriptions for my OWN art: it makes me think way more about like.

[cosmerelists]

What The Radiant Orders Would See as their Fandom Job on the Internet

Orders on the internet requested by @justheretoreadnotwrite :) 

Justheretoreadnotwrite pointed me to this very fun 17th Shard thread, and asked if I could do a riff on the Radiant Orders being on the internet. Since I wanted to try avoiding the jokes already there, I thought I would focus in on how they'd act in fandom on the internet. Specifically, what would each Order think is their Duty in Fandom?

1. Edgedancers: Finding & Leaving Comments for Zero-Kudo Fics

The Edgedancers make it their mission to listen to those who are forgotten--in this case, fics with no kudos, no comments, or no notes. The Edgedancers come to read them, like them, and comment on them!

2.  Lightweavers: Posting Fanart & Engaging in Character RP chats

You want your favorite character or OC to have art drawn of them? Just ask your nearest Lightweaver! Or, if you just wish you could roleplay with your favorite character, the Lightweavers can do that too. They are, like, VERY good at pretending to be other characters.

3. Bondsmiths: Writing Alt-Text

The Bondsmiths want to make sure that fandom is accessible to all, so they're out there writing descriptions and alt-text for any fanart or tweets or other images that screenreaders might struggle over. Barriers of communication are no match for our friendly Bondsmiths.

4. Truthwatchers: Writing Call-Out Posts

If someone is out there stealing art and posting it on their own blog/twitter/pinterest page as if it's their own....well, they better hope a Truthwatcher doesn't find them. Those Truthwatchers will be telling the original artist, and they may just write a call-out post if they have to.

5.Elsecallers: Writing, just, Really Excellent Analyses and Guides

The Elsecallers are the scholars of fandom. They are writing really in-depth analyses of both the original source and of your fanfic, and they're here posting guides about how to accurately portray, like, dyeing practices of x-century. 

6. Willshapers: Writing Character x Reader Fics and Creating OCs

The Willshapers are out there putting themselves into fandom worlds--and helping you do the same. They're great at creating their own OCs and/or self-inserts, and they're the ones writing all of the Character x Reader fics as well.

7. Stonewards: Writing the Majority of the Actual Fanfic

In terms of sheer output--like keeping the fandom running by doing the hard work of actually writing fics--the Stonewards are leading the way. If there's such a thing as the "front lines" of fandom, I think it's people filling A03 and creating longform content.

8. Windrunners: Forum/Discord Moderation

The Windrunners want to make sure that fandom spaces are protected & safe for their members, so they're likely to take on the role of administrators or moderators--kinda like, you know, being the king's guard but here the the "king" is 19 people who all want to talk about the same character.

9. Dustbringers: Being the Most Popular Person in the Fandom

The Dustbringers are the "great power / great responsibility" order. They know they could level that city or dissolve that person into atoms or whatever, but they have more restraint that that. Probably. In the same way, Dustrbingers are The Person in their fandom. If they choose to retweet or reblog or boost your fic/art/analysis, you are made, my friend. On the other hand, if they decide you're an enemy...

10. Skybreakers: Following the Rules. The Internet Rules. 

Listen, the Skybreakers don't judge rules, they follow rules. So if a fandom on the internet has rules, the Skybreakers really have no choice to follow them. You know, like Rule 34 for example.

So yes, the Skybreakers are out there making sure there is porn of your favorite character. You're welcome.

#cosmere #cosmerelists #Stormlight Archive #Knights Radiant

[autisticaradiamegido]

day 39

a redraw from a couple years back that was originally a redraw from 2014 so thats a FULL DECADE OF PROGRESS, BABEY!!

#day 39 #year 5 #terezi pyrope #homestuck #the thing about the image description project. and going through the backlog. #is that it really incentivizes me to do a lot of redraws because then i can reuse large portions of the descriptions for Old Art #making minor tweaks to account for the differences #as opposed to writing. just so much alt text #heres the thing about writing image descriptions for my OWN art: it makes me think way more about like. #what parts of the piece are vital and which parts aren't #because obviously you wanna give as complete a description as possible #but you also dont want to take up a whole bunch of a persons time rattling on about shit they dont care about. like. #idk! it's an interesting exercise and im still getting a handle on that balance i think #once again let me know if im not hitting the mark

[imsobadatnicknames2]

How can you consider yourself any sort of leftist when you defend AI art bullshit? You literally simp for AI techbros and have the gall to pretend you're against big corporations?? Get fucked

I don't "defend" AI art. I think a particular old post of mine that a lot of people tend to read in bad faith must be making the rounds again lmao.

Took me a good while to reply to this because you know what? I decided to make something positive out of this and use this as an opportunity to outline what I ACTUALLY believe about AI art. If anyone seeing this decides to read it in good or bad faith... Welp, your choice I guess.

I have several criticisms of the way the proliferation of AI art generators and LLMs is making a lot of things worse. Some of these are things I have voiced in the past, some of these are things I haven't until now:

Most image and text AI generators are fine-tuned to produce nothing but the most agreeable, generically pretty content slop, pretty much immediately squandering their potential to be used as genuinely interesting artistic tools with anything to offer in terms of a unique aesthetic experience (AI video still manages to look bizarre and interesting but it's getting there too)

In the entertainment industry and a lot of other fields, AI image generation is getting incorporated into production pipelines in ways that lead to the immiseration of working artists, being used to justify either lower wages or straight-up layoffs, and this is something that needs to be fought against. That's why I unconditionally supported the SAG-AFTRA strikes last year and will unconditionally support any collective action to address AI art as a concrete labor issue

In most fields where it's being integrated, AI art is vastly inferior to human artists in any use case where you need anything other than to make a superficially pretty picture really fast. If you need to do anything like ask for revisions or minor corrections, give very specific descriptions of how objects and people are interacting with each other, or just like. generate several pictures of the same thing and have them stay consistent with each other, you NEED human artists and it's preposterous to think they can be replaced by AI.

There is a lot of art of the internet that consists of the most generically pretty, cookie-cutter anime waifu-adjacent slop that has zero artistic or emotional value to either the people seeing it or the person churning it out, and while this certainly was A Thing before the advent of AI art generators, generative AI has made it extremely easy to become the kind of person who churns it out and floods online art spaces with it.

Similarly, LLMs make it extremely easy to generate massive volumes of texts, pages, articles, listicles and what have you that are generic vapid SEO-friendly pap at best and bizzarre nonsense misinformation at worst, drowning useful information in a sea of vapid noise and rendering internet searches increasingly useless.

The way LLMs are being incorporated into customer service and similar services not only, again, encourages further immiseration of customer service workers, but it's also completely useless for most customers.

A very annoyingly vocal part the population of AI art enthusiasts, fanatics and promoters do tend to talk about it in a way that directly or indirectly demeans the merit and skill of human artists and implies that they think of anyone who sees anything worthwile in the process of creation itself rather than the end product as stupid or deluded.

So you can probably tell by now that I don't hold AI art or writing in very high regard. However (and here's the part that'll get me called an AI techbro, or get people telling me that I'm just jealous of REAL artists because I lack the drive to create art of my own, or whatever else) I do have some criticisms of the way people have been responding to it, and have voiced such criticisms in the past.

I think a lot of the opposition to AI art has critstallized around unexamined gut reactions, whipping up a moral panic, and pressure to outwardly display an acceptable level of disdain for it. And in particular I think this climate has made a lot of people very prone to either uncritically entertain and adopt regressive ideas about Intellectual Propety, OR reveal previously held regressive ideas about Intellectual Property that are now suddenly more socially acceptable to express:

(I wanna preface this section by stating that I'm a staunch intellectual property abolitionist for the same reason I'm a private property abolitionist. If you think the existence of intellectual property is a good thing, a lot of my ideas about a lot of stuff are gonna be unpalatable to you. Not much I can do about it.)

A lot of people are suddenly throwing their support behind any proposal that promises stricter copyright regulations to combat AI art, when a lot of these also have the potential to severely udnermine fair use laws and fuck over a lot of independent artist for the benefit of big companies.

It was very worrying to see a lot of fanfic authors in particular clap for the George R R Martin OpenAI lawsuit because well... a lot of them don't realize that fanfic is a hobby that's in a position that's VERY legally precarious at best, that legally speaking using someone else's characters in your fanfic is a much of a violation of copyright law as stright up stealing entire passages, and that any regulation that can be used against the latter can be extended against the former.

Similarly, a lot of artists were cheering for the lawsuit against AI art models trained to mimic the style of specific artists. Which I agree is an extremely scummy thinbg to do (just like a human artist making a living from ripping off someone else's work is also extremely scummy), but I don't think every scummy act necessarily needs to be punishable by law, and some of them would in fact leave people worse off if they were. All this to say: If you are an artist, and ESPECIALLY a fan artist, trust me. You DON'T wanna live in a world where there's precedent for people's artstyles to be considered intellectual property in any legally enforceable way. I know you wanna hurt AI art people but this is one avenue that's not worth it.

Especially worrying to me as an indie musician has been to see people mention the strict copyright laws of the music industry as a positive thing that they wanna emulate. "this would never happen in the music industry because they value their artists copyright" idk maybe this is a the grass is greener type of situation but I'm telling you, you DON'T wanna live in a world where copyright law in the visual arts world works the way it does in the music industry. It's not worth it.

I've seen at least one person compare AI art model training to music sampling and say "there's a reason why they cracked down on sampling" as if the death of sampling due to stricter copyright laws was a good thing and not literally one of the worst things to happen in the history of music which nearly destroyed several primarily black music genres. Of course this is anecdotal because it's just One Guy I Saw Once, but you can see what I mean about how uncritical support for copyright law as a tool against AI can lead people to adopt increasingly regressive ideas about copyright.

Similarly, I've seen at least one person go "you know what? Collages should be considered art theft too, fuck you" over an argument where someone else compared AI art to collages. Again, same point as above.

Similarly, I take issue with the way a lot of people seem EXTREMELY personally invested in proving AI art is Not Real Art. I not only find this discussion unproductive, but also similarly dangerously prone to validating very reactionary ideas about The Nature Of Art that shouldn't really be entertained. Also it's a discussion rife with intellectual dishonesty and unevenly applied definition as standards.

When a lot of people present the argument of AI art not being art because the definition of art is this and that, they try to pretend that this is the definition of art the've always operated under and believed in, even when a lot of the time it's blatantly obvious that they're constructing their definition on the spot and deliberately trying to do so in such a way that it doesn't include AI art.

They never succeed at it, btw. I've seen several dozen different "AI art isn't art because art is [definition]". I've seen exactly zero of those where trying to seriously apply that definition in any context outside of trying to prove AI art isn't art doesn't end up in it accidentally excluding one or more non-AI artforms, usually reflecting the author's blindspots with regard to the different forms of artistic expression.

(However, this is moot because, again, these are rarely definitions that these people actually believe in or adhere to outside of trying to win "Is AI art real art?" discussions.)

Especially worrying when the definition they construct is built around stuff like Effort or Skill or Dedication or The Divine Human Spirit. You would not be happy about the kinds of art that have traditionally been excluded from Real Art using similar definitions.

Seriously when everyone was celebrating that the Catholic Church came out to say AI art isn't real art and sharing it as if it was validating and not Extremely Worrying that the arguments they'd been using against AI art sounded nearly identical to things TradCaths believe I was like. Well alright :T You can make all the "I never thought I'd die fighting side by side with a catholic" legolas and gimli memes you want, but it won't change the fact that the argument being made by the catholic church was a profoundly conservative one and nearly identical to arguments used to dismiss the artistic merit of certain forms of "degenerate" art and everyone was just uncritically sharing it, completely unconcerned with what kind of worldview they were lending validity to by sharing it.

Remember when the discourse about the Gay Sex cats pic was going on? One of the things I remember the most from that time was when someone went "Tell me a definition of art that excludes this picture without also excluding Fountain by Duchamp" and how just. Literally no one was able to do it. A LOT of people tried to argue some variation of "Well, Fountain is art and this image isn't because what turns fountain into art is Intent. Duchamp's choice to show a urinal at an art gallery as if it was art confers it an element of artistic intent that this image lacks" when like. Didn't by that same logic OP's choice to post the image on tumblr as if it was art also confer it artistic intent in the same way? Didn't that argument actually kinda end up accidentally validating the artistic status of every piece of AI art ever posted on social media? That moment it clicked for me that a lot of these definitions require applying certain concepts extremely selectively in order to make sense for the people using them.

A lot of people also try to argue it isn't Real Art based on the fact that most AI art is vapid but like. If being vapid definitionally excludes something from being art you're going to have to exclude a whooole lot of stuff along with it. AI art is vapid. A lot of art is too, I don't think this argument works either.

Like, look, I'm not really invested in trying to argue in favor of The Artistic Merits of AI art but I also find it extremely hard to ignore how trying to categorically define AI art as Not Real Art not only is unproductive but also requires either a) applying certain parts of your definition of art extremely selectively, b) constructing a definition of art so convoluted and full of weird caveats as to be functionally useless, or c) validating extremely reactionary conservative ideas about what Real Art is.

Some stray thoughts that don't fit any of the above sections.

I've occassionally seen people respond to AI art being used for shitposts like "A lot of people have affordable commissions, you could have paid someone like $30 to draw this for you instead of using the plagiarism algorithm and exploiting the work of real artists" and sorry but if you consider paying an artist a rate that amounts to like $5 for several hours of work a LESS exploitative alternative I think you've got something fucked up going on with your priorities.

Also it's kinda funny when people comment on the aforementioned shitposts with some variation of "see, the usage of AI art robs it of all humor because the thing that makes shitposts funny is when you consider the fact that someone would spend so much time and effort in something so stupid" because like. Yeah that is part of the humor SOMETIMES but also people share and laugh at low effort shitposts all the time. Again you're constructing a definition that you don't actually believe in anywhere outside of this type of conversations. Just say you don't like that it's AI art because you think it's morally wrong and stop being disingenuous.

So yeah, this is pretty much everything I believe about the topic.

I don't "defend" AI art, but my opposition to it is firmly rooted in my principles, and that means I refuse to uncritically accept any anti-AI art argument that goes against those same principles.

If you think not accepting and parroting every Anti-AI art argument I encounter because some of them are ideologically rooted in things I disagree with makes me indistinguishable from "AI techbros" you're working under a fucked up dichotomy.

[mimicha-arts]

Starry, Starry night

This new picture for the upcoming episode has been released, let's talk about it. Please remember, I live in delusion.

There are several posters on the wall, and the one next to Cheng Xiaoshi - 星空，refers to the film with the same title. Starry, Starry night is a 2011 Taiwanese drama based on a novel by Taiwanese author Jimmy Liao.

Hsieh Xin-Mei used to live with her grandparents up in the mountains. Then she moves to the city to live with her parents, but her family situation is not very good, and she tries to hide from reality in the world of her own imagination. One day, a new student was transferred to her school - a boy named Zhou Yu-Jie. 

Despite the misunderstanding at the beginning, both of them are lonely and feel like outsiders in their own lives, befriending one another. When reality catches up, they try to escape to a world that belongs only to them, to see the stars. Do I have to tell you that this story is about grief and sorrows, "the end of summer", journey to adulthood, love across time and distance? About an accidental meeting and fate.

I think it's worth your time to watch, this film is very heartwarming.

You can read the full plot description on Wikipedia, although it will not convey the full meaning, since the film has many artistic images and interesting decisions that convey the story sensitively. If you want to watch it yourself, read no further. 

Spoilers … And References. And some beautiful moments that make me THINK.

1. Time 

One of the themes is time, the hands of the clock often tick in the background, and at some point the numbers themselves, which indicate train departures, not just stop - freeze.

18:42 - 18:50 - 18:55

Do I believe in coincidences? No.

 2. Journey 

Their path - an escape to their dream world - passes through a tropical wild forest. On their journey, they try, despite the difficulties, to find the right path to their dream.

Since s2e1, I've been thinking about how much the forest in the back of that vision, ED/OP, is a real forest, a real tunnel, not the symbolism of the "journey". But now, if such a choice is not accidental, I have received answers to my questions, at some point.

In fact, I lost my mind at the moment when they came to a fork in the road, they had to choose their path - they took the wrong path, and were forced to face the same choice, choosing a path, for the second time. Again.

But in the end, the path to the stars ends in a life-threatening situation where they have no choice but "return". Although they both know that this is the end for them, the end of their journey, and the end of their "summer".

3. Puzzles 

This story is about art, not about photography, but about paintings and puzzles. Puzzles literally act as moments of remembrance. Although these are not burning photographs, deep in her sleep, Hsieh Xin-Mei follows the image of Zhou Yu-Jie in the night forest, and the entire world also collapses when the end comes.

When Hsieh Xin-Mei woke up from her dream, Zhou Yu-Jie was no longer here.

The search for the missing part - the sun, on the puzzle based on the painting "Starry, Starry Night" - is fundamental, literally the core to the plot.

The connection of everything, through the years. It's like a promise, it's like an eternal memory of that time.

There are more things I could write about, but I don't want to make this post too long… Just. There is always something about stories with a sunshine-like person, curious, breaking boundaries, talking non-stop, and about a person who quietly looks at the first one, listening to everything with a smile. And it becomes life-changing. I would like to remind you that these are just my thoughts, I'm having fun, maybe seeing something that isn't there. We will see anyway. 

But. For real. Put a detail like that into an episode and expect me to ignore it? No. Huh. 

I'm just overthinking once again, but Interesting choice :) 

#link click #shiguang dailiren #shiguang #mimicha.lc

[saintbleeding]

do you have any advice for writing image descriptions? I’ve been wanting to add some to my art but I don’t know how to go about it

hello anon!!! that’s a wonderful thing to want to do and im happy to offer whatever help i can :3

so because image descriptions are very much a community effort, that does also mean there isn’t really a style guide or anything, which can be freeing but also quite intimidating! here are some kinda off the top of my head suggestions:

If ur comfier putting the ID in alt text than the post body, that is still much MUCH better than no ID at all (and side note, if someone copy+pastes ur id into a reblog, it’s not a suggestion that you did anything wrong, they’re just trying to make them maximally accessible. while a lot of ppl who need IDs will use screenreaders and will prefer alt text, there are ppl whose preference is plain text in the body of the post (i personally fall into this category))

similarly, if you are struggling to write an ID/don’t have the energy/etc, i cannot recommend People’s Accessibility on discord highly enough. there are some wonderful folks in there who can give you pointers or even write IDs for you! likewise, i can’t speak on others’ behalf but i’ve gladly written IDs for ppl’s posts before they’ve put them up before, and i’m happy to do so, even if we havent interacted before! you can shoot me a DM with the image you need described and i’m glad to assist

more specifically:

it’s good practice to include the name of the fandom and the characters, assuming it’s fanart. altho it’s likely that fanart will stay broadly within a circle where people are familiar with the source material, there may be ppl who encounter the post and wouldn’t know this detail without it being laid out explicitly

you’re welcome to mention whichever details you like, especially if you are the artist, because you know what’s important to the image as a whole. it’s also perfectly acceptable not to get super detailed on things like clothing/hairstyles, especially if they aren’t relevant to what’s going on

a good rule of thumb is to ask yourself, if you didn’t have the image in front of you and just had the description, would it be a true representation of what the image looks like/portrays? would your mental image be accurate? that’s what you’re shooting for.

the best advice i can give is to just dive in and start, bc it gets a lot less intimidating once you’ve done a few, and it also gets easier the more you do it :3

also, i think trying to follow ppl who describe images helps a lot, because you will get more passive exposure to descriptions and what you think works/doesn’t, which can improve your own ID writing! on that note, highly recommend @princess-of-purple-prose/@pathos-logical (kay is a pillar of this and every community tbqh), @ryutarotakedown, @lucky-numberme, @fox-guardian, @squeeneyart, @hotdrinks, @samwise1548, and @rq-described (a breadth of interests represented here, but also if you’re asking me i presume you have at least a passing interest in audio drama and adjacent :3 )

thanks so much for asking and as i said i’m always happy to help however i can!!! happy describing, i believe in you!!!

#asks #anon #i hope this is a little helpful!!! #i just try to follow as many folks who do ids as i can and learn by osmosis tbqh #this also delighted me very much :3

[mxopifex]

A Fanfic Writer's Guide to Writing Fanart Prompts

So it came up while chatting with some other members of a fandom gift exchange that some of the writers felt less comfortable writing prompts for recieving fanart gifts and I thought I'd try and make a guide to help out since I do both fanart and fanfic.

The stumbling blocks as I understood them were: 1) not knowing what you like in fanart, 2) not knowing how to articulate what you like (which is probably more related to the first item than you think), and 3) worrying that all your prompts are too narrative. Imma do my best to address those, but if you have other questions feel free to drop me a line. I want to help.

I call this a guide, but it's more of a series of questions to ask yourself than a how to, or rather this is a how to think about and understand what you want to ask for type guide. A good prompt doesn't need to (and maybe shouldn't) touch on every issue I bring up here. The goal is to make the person who is making your gift feel confident that they can make something you like, not to tell them exactly what to do.

What to do if you are worried that you make all your prompts too narrative heavy:

First, relax. Fanart often carries a narrative component. You can reasonably prompt something that might involve a bit of visual storytelling. That said, the amount of story you can get in a single image is much smaller than the amount you can pack into even a modest 1k short story. Imagine a single scene you might like to see; the kind you love when it pops up in a fic. "I'd like to see the blorbos on a beach vacation" or "I'd like to see character A treating character B's wounds." You can further abstract this to things like "a cozy domestic scene" or "being flirty."

Some Prompt Prompts for if you are feeling stuck on what to ask for

Tropes! Many tropes work in a fanart setting. The ones that don't are the ones that need a bit more narrative behind them to make sense. It might be tricky to convey Fake Dating with a single image, but Hurt/Comfort or Only One Bed is very doable.

AUs! Want to let the artist play dress up with the blorbos? See what they'd look like as the socialite guests in a 1920s Agatha Christy style murder mystery? or just ask for something more general like a fairy tale setting or modern au.

Set the mood! What's the vibe you like best about this character or coupling? Do you want something dark and broody? More lighthearted and comedic? Tender and romantic?

Style! While I don't advise requesting something in the vein of a specific artist's style (the person making your gift has their own style) talking about styles of art that you like can help them understand what's visually appealing to you. So mentioning like "a moody film noir type setting" or "overwrought flowery romance like in shojo manga" isn't horrible, as long as you leave the artist room to bring their own sensibilities into the picture.

Poses! Want that bridal carry? Sharing an umbrella? Something that emphasizes a height difference? Don't go too hog wild with details "and their left pinky at a thirty degree angle..." but if you wanna see someone getting dipped on the dance floor, go ahead and ask for it.

Two final thoughts. First, just like with fic prompts you want to have a couple different ones in your ask. Every artist has things they feel more or less comfortable with, and giving a few options helps to make sure that there's at least one that they can work with. Particularly if you have a more complex prompt, it would be good to also have one that's simpler or more open to interpretation. Second, check in with yourself to see if you have any art specific DNWs.Maybe you can handle written descriptions of blood but not visual depictions or maybe the character has that one outfit that you think is butt ugly. Either way make sure you are clear about it in your prompt.

#fanart #fanfic #fandom exchange

[toothlespoggers]

GUYS I WAS LISTENING TO SUNROOF (the kidz bop version because I love how childish and vibey that specific song sounds in that version, don’t judge me) and I had a great idea.

so you know how I’ve been working on that character Razzle Dazzle for some time now? Getting his lore, comic and everything planned and worked out.

Image for those who aren’t familiar with Raz

Image description thingie: A small round octopus-like creature with a purple body and cyan splotches. One giant yellow eye with a red pupil.

my “fresh parasite” that’s actually just a species of monster native to waterfalls deep water named the Squimic

basically they’re creatures that have the intelligence of a regular small monster and an octopus, they have a mix of octopus and squid traits and can see perfectly in the dark but are sensitive to light. They’re semi aquatic meaning they can survive on land if they stay in a moist environment, they eat sugary foods primarily and survive by camouflaging themselves like a octopus, their natural colours blend right in with the marsh of waterfall and the bioluminescent spots make them look like a mushroom, which not only stops them from being spotted but also helps alert predators that they are in fact poisonous (about as deadly as a blue ring octopus but safe to handle just don’t eat it.)

anyway, in the story, raz’s classic world goes into a genocide and he survives by being so stealthy that the player never encounters him that’s my excuse for why he’s not in canon undertale jk

but basically in order to survive he has to mimic the abilities of a stronger monster, that’s how his species works they have no magic of their own they just copy others and imprint their own unique flare onto it. So the strongest monster happened to be sans, since he was going to fight the human and Alphys was saying he would probably succeed when the underground was evacuating. I was going to have him jump onto the sans, takeover the body and end up crashing the game sending the two of them into the void. But then I had a thought- what if he really is just a mimic? What if he never takes over the sans body, what if he just shapeshifts into a sans, yk because his whole species magic revolves around copying? What if that’s what happens.

then raz would just, have the same thing happen to him, but he’d just- be raz. The previous plot holes I had with the sans having sentience logically would vanish and the lore would match up perfectly.

it’d explain why his body changes when he meets fresh and decides to copy his appearance and behaviour. How he goes from round classic sans to a slightly different shape- skinnier and taller. He’s a shapeshifter, that’s why he never had eyelights, that’s why he bleeds rainbow. That’s how he’s able to turn from little squid man to skeleton. He’s a shapeshifter.

I shouldn’t technically be dumping a lot of my revelations on my au here since I’m kinda scared someone more popular than me will take my silly idea and no one will pay attention to me. But I’ve been working on this for a while and this just clicks into place so nicely I had to share it with the class. I mean, might as well let people see what I’ve actually been working on.

y’all are free to ask me questions and I can answer them if you want, I definitely don’t have many pieces of art to showcase the writing work I’ve been doing on this au yet. So most of it is just me explaining it until further notice. But hopefully everyone will think it’s cool!

I’ve been told by friends and stuff that my whole raz idea is a really unique fresh sans. Since he’s like his own thing ^^

I’m going to close tumblr immediately after posting this because I panic at the response I’ll get whenever I send something I’m excited about

#fresh sans #undertale #fresh!sans #razzle dazzle fresh sans #text post #undertale au #undertale fandom #utmv #idk what to tag tbh

[moreteethplease]

Devlog: You Died On A Tuesday

> Play it here!

You Died On A Tuesday is a short piece of prose - a set of bones, if you will - made in bitsy for the 75th Bitsy jam, with the theme "waiting". It is a contemplation on grief, resilience, and healing.

Devlog under the cut.

I wrote You Died On A Tuesday one sleep-deprived night in a sudden fit of inspiration. The first portion (everything in the ribcage scene and first blank transitional screen) almost seemed to write itself. At first I thought it might be a bit Too Much, but with the encouragement of a friend, I sat back and allowed my brain to take the writing where it wanted. I'm fairly happy with the result.

The biggest problem I faced during the making of this game is that I had written prose but no idea what to pair it with. It's not the first time I've written something that is more prose than game, and a lot of my bitsy games meet that description, but usually I have a good sense of what sort of art I'm going to pair it with.

After a bit of thinking, I decided to start with a simple beating heart. I love making animated scenes in bitsy, even though it's quite time-consuming. The second thing I made didn't end up getting used: a simple bunch of flowers meant for the final line.

I was happy-ish with the flowers, but I fell in love with how the beating heart looked, so I decided that the game's visual backdrop for its writing would be organs, body parts, and bones.

All of the art in this game was made with the use of CC0 images and vectors, either as references or for direct conversion into pixel art.

Thoughts Behind The Game

While this game is fictional, it draws from some of my own thoughts.

I think I'm a fairly resilient person, and I've weathered my fair share of storms. I won't go into detail about them, but this has taught me how to grieve, process trauma, and move on, which is perhaps ironic because those storms also gave me C-PTSD and DID. But I digress.

A while ago, I found myself in a conversation about old married couples who often die within a year of each other—sometimes within days! My partner and I have been together for 9 years, and we both have every intention of growing old and grey together. A dear friend of mine pointed this out and said that we were likely to go out like those old couples do. I agreed at the time, but later that night, I thought about it and realized I wasn't sure if the grief would be enough to kill me. And then I also realized that there would be few things more horrifying to me than managing to move on entirely from my partner's death, as I have done for many loved ones before.

"Wow, that sure is morbid!" Don't worry, I won't grieve something that—fingers crossed—won't happen for a few more decades. But I did think that these thoughts were something I wanted to make art about, and this bitsy jam came about at the exact right time.

Thanks for reading this far down! If you'd like, you can play this not-quite-game here:

#bitsy #devlog #indiegamedev #indie dev #indie game #interactive fiction #gif warning

[annbourbon]

After reading What is...? by @creativepromptsforwriting (if you haven't read her blog or follow her WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR!?)

I decided to add some of my notes here too. Because it's on the little things I've been studying every night to get better at writing. So please consider this post as part/collab of "What is...?"

★Please keep in mind that this comes from someone whose first language it's not english, so, what for some might be obvious, for others it is not.

Blurb? is a short promotional description on your book. But can also be used to promote movies and other things.

Needs: Hook + Keywords (define an audience) + keep it short and leave them wanting for more.

* Remember to check for spelling and grammar mistakes.

Nowadays you can use quotes from your book as promo too. Pinterest is your best ally here. Make a bunch of attractive images with a colorful quotes and upload it on your social media! ^♡^

Honestly when it comes to promos you should exploit it all (meaning: create quotes, collage, your cover, promos, etc!) Be your own fan. Create a playlist, ambience, set the mood. Let your own world drag you into the woods, do not resist it.

If you love it, other will love it too.

W.I.P.? Means Work in Progress. So you have yet a lot to do to finish your story. it's okay, it takes time \^♡^/

Pathetic fallacy Vs Personification?

Pathetic fallacy

It's specifically about giving emotions to something non-human (objects, nature, or animals)

Writers use the pathetic fallacy to evoke a specific mood or feeling that usually reflects their own or a character's internal state. While I have seen some detractors of using this technique, think of Emily Brontë novel, Wuthering Heights, or Shakespeare in several of his works like Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth. Or Mary Shelly's Frankenstein. So study it and use it carefully and you should be fine. Times change but you should write however you want too.

Personification

On the other hand, is giving any human attribute to an object.

Think of The Beauty and the Beast, Alice in Wonderland, and Toy Story as great examples of what personification is.

Atmosphere?  is the way an author uses setting, objects, or internal thoughts of characters to create emotion, mood, or experiences for the reader.

For me Mary Shelley with Frankenstein is one of the most accurate examples I can give, but when I think about it, Robinson Crusoe, and Moby Dick, both feel tremendously claustrophobic and desperate to the reader, full of details, the time passes slowly and it's insufferable. Which in theory is not okay because the reader can drop the book but guess what? They're classic because you want to know what happens next. Which brings me to my next point, if you want to know more about the art of writing, you should try the following channels on YT:

Abbie Emmons

She has some interesting videos, but one crazy tip that will change your mind. It actually works. And don't worry, she keeps repeating it over and over so you learn it too. She also offers some courses and several activities like writing together (in case you're trying to write but can't, now you have a date!)

Ellie Dashwood

If you're into social dynamics, subtlety and want to get better writing period stories wether they are romantic or dramas, then she's your best bet. While she doesn't teach you how to write better she does teach you literature and history. And trust me, some of these things can be more than helpful. The way she analyzes and provides for clarification over social situations has made me understand not just Jane Austen but my own time in a different way.

Fiction Beast

This is showing me a lot of literature and making me read classics. Of course it wouldn't work if it wasn't because of Ellie but it's a must! because it does explains a lot.

Ana Neu

I just discovered her and Ellen so I can't say a lot of things but their videos have been really helpful with some of the things I've been working on especially with Fit or Die, so you should check out both of these girls.

Ellen Brock

and of course, he needs no introduction, but if you didn't know, he has several classes posted on his channel which have been helping me tremendously.

Brandon Sanderson

*Disclaimer: They're not paying me for doing promo. I just do this on my own account because I truly admire their work and effort put into it. Plus, I always do this for anyone if I truly admire the way they work. And I believe this is helpful for anyone with hopes of becoming an author. Even if it's just a hobby. Have fun~!

#annabourbon #danteann #faith dante #books #writers write #write #writer #writing #female writers #fiction writing #creative #creative writing #words #indie writer #writerscommunity #writers on tumblr #writeblr #writer problems #writing tips #help with writing #writing advice #writing a book #writing about writing #writing books #book blog #books and reading #writers and readers

[tentacleteapot]

some of you might be aware that one of my hobbies is making playlists (I have 225 Spotify playlists at last count, only 21 of which are WIPs), especially for both my OCs and characters that I really like. as you might expect, this means I actually have a couple Elden Ring playlists and as you also might expect, they're both entirely dedicated to Rykard/Volcano Manor.

I pretty much had to make a Rykard playlist—he's such a compelling character to me, and it's a shame the Volcano Manor portion of the game doesn't last longer. I love what an interesting twist he is on the Lucifer archetype, one who went so far to defy the restrictive religious order he was meant to inherit that even his own soldiers don't support him anymore, leaving him to rely on people who join him willingly because their philosophies are compatible with those of him and his proxy leader, a wife he genuinely loves and adores. I think there's enough to explore in his story and mindset that I almost want to write a video essay about Volcano Manor someday, because it's jut so fascinating to me. the art chosen for the cover image is by Guido Mangieri, by the way—I wanted to make sure he's credited both here AND in the Spotify description.

this one is a little messier and isn't as organized or cohesive as the first, because despite the cover image I chose it's not about Lady Tanith specifically—it's meant to be the soundtrack to PVP invasions as well as just some songs that generally make me think of Volcano Manor and its characters/overall atmosphere. a lot of the songs on here are very edgy and that's on purpose, because one thing I love about Volcano Manor is the fact that while I think it's perfectly consistent and works pretty flawlessly within the wider context of Elden Ring, it is also kind of undeniably the closest thing you get to having an edgelord faction to join unless the DLC lets us sign up to become a Godskin or something. I may revisit this one someday and clean it up a bit.

I have plenty more playlists where that came from, for other things I'm a huge fan of like Revolutionary Girl Utena or Kingdom Hearts, and sometimes I make playlists for things I don't even like just because I think a character from it is interesting enough to want to explore musically. if there's any interest in seeing more of my playlists I'd be happy to post some!

#Elden Ring #Rykard #Rykard Lord of Blasphemy #Volcano Manor #Tanith #Lady Tanith #my playlists #Spotify #re: the second playlist—it’s not supposed to be uncredited fan art. I changed the image before posting this but for some reason I guess it’s #*still cached? idk maybe it’ll update soon. either way the image there is NOT supposed to be random fan art with no source. #when I changed the image I updated the playlist description to remove the source because the image was gone #and now it looks like I used somebody’s fan art without credit so that’s fun thanks Spotify

[skeledude]

Today on Skeledude's Mind Palace

I saw the Distinction level students personal project and started worrying. I had the chance to see some of the previous students work. The teacher told us it was a distinction level project, and that already made me a bit worried. We went through the first week.

Are you sure this girl isn't writing a novel? That's more words than I type in a year!

These are some of the longest words and sentences combined together. This gave me a lot of stress, you know how bad it got. I was thinking about using an Ai to help me write, I was so desperate that I almost threw away my morals. But I didn't. 

This may not be the greatest, but it’s made by me, that's what matters the most. Maybe I won’t get a distinction, but that’s not like the end of the world, that's America.

Ai art is like a remix, these Ai artists (if you can even call them artists) use a pre-built tool to mash up a multitude of images and print out a new one, just like a DJ, except for the fact that DJ’s actually have talent. I’m not worried about Ai taking over my job, just like how painters never got replaced by cameras, art is forever worthy in the hands of a person. As intelligent creatures we have emotion that transcends from one to another. Art isn’t something you can say in a formula, it’s a complex feeling that humans understand, you experience art. I just hope others can understand. 

Kind of hard to take a machine seriously, then again, in the future who knows, maybe they’ll give the Ai feelings, and what I said would be wrong. 

(but we can still tell the difference between a set of hands better)

(I'm here from the future, I realize the next few parts aren't related to making comics, I was so worried about not filling the word count that I just let my mind loose, I'll just put it in the description of thinking process which happens to come out from comic)

I'm not a teacher, at least not yet.The difference between a teacher who knows an answer and a student who knows an answer is whether they could explain it. I could know how to do something without understanding the reasons behind it, just thinking and doing, a teacher is different in the fact that they really think and do, they know the cause and effect. Teachers can explain, teachers can teach.

Students learn, reading is learning. Here we are reading me teaching you the basics of making a comic, guess I'm finally the teacher then. I'm going to teach you my process.

“Everything is nothing but nothing is something”, this is a quote I just made up, it could mean something which is also nothing at all. The thing with art is everyone has their own interpretation, a quote is an art form, could mean anything, “All roads lead to Rome” could mean everything will sort out in the end, it could also mean that Rome is a structurally failed city because people can,t get out of there. 

I’ve been giving you kind of a lecture haven’t I.

I don’t want to sound like I’m better, that’s below me, so you’re saying you’re better than yourself, maybe, How can a person be better than before, improving.

I could sound like the most narcissistic person in this project, but at the same time this is my project. I keep using ‘’I’’, because what else am I supposed to use, “I’’ is the first person pronoun. Maybe I’ll use my name, But I don’t want to type “Jim” every time I need to refer to myself. Guess “I” is the way to go. Does calling yourself in the third person form make you more narcissistic? Possible. Maybe I got the word ”narcissist” wrong. Thinking of yourself as worthy of compassion is not being a narcissist.

Self-awareness is not a personality, It's more of an action that you take, I’m aware of the people around me. I’m aware that there are an infinite amount of thoughts and actions happening everyday thanks to these people. Being self aware is important. 

I could think of a thousand ideas, the problem is I wouldn’t have the place to store them, if only there was some kind of machine that could hook up my brain to printer or sorts, print out a thousand ideas a second, maybe it will read some inaccurate ideas, those inaccurate ideas are my thinking process. 

Perception is the existence of neurons in your head, every action you take is thought beforehand, then taken information from the database in your head to calculate a proper solution. You think, therefore you are. 

#mindset #mindfulness #perception #meaning #understanding #purpose #storytelling #oc #comics #comic books #being

[skaldish]

I'll level with y'all on this—I've been focusing on my store a lot because I'm trying to find an additional source of income in the face of disability.

To the shock of no one, I'm a web designer by trade. My background lies in writing and art. It's not lost on me how much I can do with my skillset...but there's also not a lot I can do outside of it.

A few years ago, I started developing chronic soft tissue damage in my dominant hand due to daily computer-work for my job. This, combined with my rapidly-declining mental health due to the pandemic, forced me to move from full-time to contract with my current employer so I wouldn't completely destroy my body or my mind.

I'm blessed that I live in a state that with quality state health insurance. My living expenses are extremely low and I don't need to make a whole lot to squeak by.

However, I now live with a permanent physical limitation, which limits what I can do on a day-to-day basis. Because of this, I've started to look into setting up long-term investments. This includes literal economic investments like stocks and bonds, but also in projects that will sort of just...semi-run themselves after I put in the work needed to get them going.

Given my skillset, e-commerce is perfect for this.

Let me tell you all a little secret. Setting upon an online store and selling things is stupidly, ridiculously easy. It's even more ludicrously easy when you know how to use what I call "rich people tools"—the kind of online marketing solutions wholeass companies use to advertise and grow.

These tools run like a well-oiled machine. Everything about them is about minimizing effort while maximizing profit. Most so-called "social media," like twitter, facebook, and pinterest? They all integrate with these tools seamlessly, because the true purpose of these websites is to be marketing platforms for business owners, so they can deliver their ads directly to people's eyeballs in environments where their guards are down.

It's actually pretty fucking disgusting.

(I've always hated advertisements and the culture that surrounded them. It's why I don't try to push products too heavily here even though I know I can queue up a million reblogs for them. Knowing what I know now just makes me hate it all even more.)

But anyway, for the last month or so, I've been thrown into an ethical dilemma. I don't want to, and never wanted to, monetize Skald's Keep. Its purpose is to be a free website that competes against the monetization and commercialization of Heathenry.

But it's also supposed to be a trustworthy website. By having a store that clearly sells a plethora of direct-to-consumer products, it looks like I have ulterior motivations, and that's not what I'd call trustworthy.

And yet, I need a livelihood, and e-commerce is the strongest play I've got.

Fortunately, I think I figured out my own problem just by hashing things out here—I need to start my own business separate from Skald's Keep. An entirely different website altogether that's clearly just a store, one I can market to hell and back with the disgusting tools capitalism built for itself without sacrificing my intentions for Skald's Keep.

As for the current Skald's Keep store? I think it would be a BALLER idea to turn it into a hub for indie pagan publications—a place to feature all the devotionals, guides, and workbooks I see so many people here make but don't have one place to put 'em.

It would be stupidly easy too. The product entries can link off to whatever platform you're hosting your book on; lulu, amazon, etc. All you'll have to do is give me the link to your book, the image of the book cover, and the paragraph description, and I'll plug it all in. That way, I can showcase the work of the community without necessarily needing to "recommend" it for educational reasons. You'd basically just take advantage of my high-ranking results on google.

It will also create a library where people can easily find non-Folkish stuff, which takes money away from them and puts it in the hands of the average pagan.

Yes, I think this is the plan y'all. We will have our cake and eat it too.

Thanks for being such a great audience and for putting up with my hair-brained shenanigans as I was working through this. <3

#zan speaks #personal

[mitchelldailygames]

Heroes of Song Devlog Part 11: Picking It Back Up

I set this game to the side for a bit to work on some other projects, but recently have found some new motivation and have been diving back into it! As always, the design principles:

The heroes are cute.

Kindness matters.

The world is weird.

Sometimes you don’t fight. Sometimes you do.

Health is hearts.

Art Announcement

One of the main drivers of my new motivation is that I got art back! Check back here on the Wednesday after Christmas to see the first piece! You can also follow me on the website I continue to call Twitter to see it.

Having something to look at, something to grasp of this world I’ve been imagining, is very exciting and life-giving. On all other projects I’ve released, I’ve either done the art myself or used stock images, so there were always limitations. Having a very talented artist actually create the perfect artwork for this game is incredible. I highly recommend it. 10/10.

The artist is @warrenbutgnome. You should definitely check out his stuff.

Layout or “The Look”

I’ve recently been trying out some layout ideas and feel like I’m approaching something that I like. You can see it below. The pixelation is hiding some of the art I will be revealing soon, and the text isn’t final, but you can get the idea. I’ll just say, I’m sticking with “The heroes are cute.”

I like having the solid color corners so you can easily find chapters. The dots in that solid color field are the forj’d rune numbers for the chapter number. I think overall, this look is pretty clean and doesn’t interfere with the text. This is friendlier and softer than a lot of the stuff I’ve made (especially recently) which I think is good for this game.

The text will be justified, not left aligned. I’ve already changed it on the document. The fonts used here are Da Pandora for the title/chapter headings and Palatino for everything else. I don’t know what else to say about it, but getting this done, even though I’m a long way off from actually finalizing text and laying everything out, is really encouraging. If you have suggestions or feedback, I’m open to it!

Character Sheet

I’ve also been working on the character sheet. You can find the current version of first page, which contains the essential information for a character, below.

Knowing how much space I actually have while looking at the page on a computer is always a challenge for me. I have a tendency to give way too much space for some things and not leaving enough for others. Looking at it now, I see there is much more space for writing out the second piece of gear than the first. That could definitely be improved. Earlier versions had huge boxes for the character portrait/description, and I like it slimmed down.

I liked the idea of coloring in the symbols with color for hearts, effort, and spirit based on how much your max was. Trying it out with just normal pencils is a little awkward, so I might end up making a version that doesn’t have that so I can free up space for writing out move descriptions or songs, runes, and rituals. I’m also not sure how to get a fillable pdf that allows filling up the images for the pools without doing some programming that I don’t know how to do. That’s definitely no the top priority at the moment, but it’s on my mind. If someone reading this knows exactly how they’d do it, I’d be willing to pay to get it done.

Other Stuff

I’ve been tweaking the rules. I’ve been stat-ing out enemies. I’ve even been working out some downtime systems including a community building mechanic and mini-games for a variety of leisure/non-adventuring activities like fishing/hunting, foraging, and cooking. I also made a list of prompts for getting to know your characters a bit better when nothing else is going on. Sometimes you don’t fight.

I was going to get into all of that, but as I started writing it, I realized it really was its own post. So keep an eye out for that down the line!

The world is weird; kindness matters.

--Daily

#indie ttrpg #ttrpg #ttrpg design #ttrpg dev #heroes of song #legend of zelda

[blackmonitor]

Answer

I want to talk about something today, which is a very controversial subject. (And of course, excuse my English as always 🤭)

TRACING!!!

I got an ask recently, which I decided not to answer directly. But I wish to talk about my opinion on this subject. (Sorry, Anon.)

So: "is all your art traced"?

Some of them.

Tracing is considered a bad habit, a shameful thing, and "it's just a trace". I have already discussed this privately with some of you, and I still have insecurities about this. But when I saw this ask, I decided to change my thinking as I gathered my thought about this subject. 

So thank you, anon, for this ask! 💕

My drawing process usually starts with reference/stock hunting. I sometimes buy reference images made for artists or use stock images from sites.

Then when I have an idea, I search for something similar amongst those pictures. 

It's very unusual for me to find someone who looks exactly like Thrawn, or Eli, (or anybody), who has the same hair, clothing, or anything. I mostly just look for body postures, and not that closely. I usually search different references for hair, face, and hands. Then the body type - rarely matching. So I usually do a rough sketch, searching for the "Anchor points" of the body (idk how they appropriately named this is my own terminology here, sorry), shoulders, knees, hips, spine, ribcage, etc. Then I think about the muscles, how my character is built up, his tone, his mood, and how well those muscles are developed under the blue skin... I mean, yeah, how he should look like my character and not the model on the stock. 

After a while, I turn the reference off, and then I concentrate my piece only. 

Is this brings me joy? Help me out, Mr Big!

I use only stock pictures for my posted drawings explicitly made for this reason: to be used for any other stuff. If I'm not, then It's probably just a fun little thing that I share between a few fandom friends (mostly to contribute for the rule34 in the Star Wars fandom 🤭)

I always ask for permission if I ever use something from a fellow artist and post it on my blog. And I'll write it in the description under my picture. But won't list ten or more stock images, lol. 

I do trace images. Not everything, and not all the time, but I do, and from this day, I'll refuse to feel ashamed about it. 

And I want to hug everyone who thinks, "I traced this hand for my recent fanart, so I'll not post it because it's just a..."

It doesn't matter if that thing is a trace or not. It should not matter. You placed work in it, show it to the world!!! Show it to me! 

And I don't care if someone uses my stuff for reference, edits it, or does anything with it. Be my guest :) Show it to me, and I'll tell you how I love that! :)

Some people want to make something original, something which was never seen before. Good for you! Your art is probably unique, and you are such a talent, all of you! But I just want to make people smile with my silly ideas and bring joy who needs 😊🤭😇

Hope this answers your question, dear anon!

Edit: there was a sort of apology from anon, but I found that still negative, so it won't be present on my blog that openly. But all who made it here, you can read it. 

#Ask #anon ask #tracing #my method of drawing #story time #I hope this is answers your question #excuse me if I misunderstood you

[crow-maki]

Thoughts on AI

Most takes I see on this topic are…heated, to say the least. Understandably so — humans making art is something that ought to be celebrated and rewarded way more often than it is right now. We do, in fact, live in a capitalist hellscape that actively makes people miserable.

I fully expect a lot of people to respond angrily to this without reading the whole thing. But I think there's a lot of nuance in the topic that's being missed, and I really want discussions about the topic to be based in reality and not the overly dramatic version of reality that's been propagated in the last few months.

There is no TL;DR. If you absolutely need one, ask ChatGPT to make it for you or something. (Though it might be wrong; you'll never know.)

The Bare Minimum

I don't know of anyone outside of shitty CEOs who would argue that "not giving artists money is a good thing, actually." I mean that societally — obviously not everyone can afford to throw money at artists, and you shouldn't damage your own financial stability for someone else. Ensure your oxygen mask is secure before assisting others, so to speak. But I think most people, on both sides of the AI argument, agree that you shouldn't have to choose between making art and making a living.

Companies should hire and pay artists to make art.

Most of us aren't companies, and don't get to make those decisions. If you are making those decisions, though, and you could pay artists to make art but don't: what the fuck is wrong with you?

Great. Let's talk about stuff that's a little more nuanced than that.

Common Misconceptions

This section is necessary (and is going towards the top of this post) because I cannot stand seeing people being wrong on the internet argue moral stances based on total fabrications.

Most of these are based on my knowledge of Stable Diffusion and AI for image generation; from my understanding, large-language models like ChatGPT work similarly, but I have way less domain knowledge for LLMs.

Let's start with an easy one:

1. Prompting an AI feeds the AI. This is the easiest thing to clear up. I can download an AI model, take my computer offline, and generate as many images as I want with that model. If I then look at the model file, it has not changed. The AI is a conceptually simple transformation: it takes in text, turns that text into some numbers, does some math with those numbers, and then turns those numbers into pixels. There is no magic involved, no sentience, no upload to Google to let them know what I'm making.

That being said, using common online AI solutions like ChatGPT or Midjourney carries the risk of feeding future versions of the AI; most of these sites have a Terms of Service that say that any inputs you give it can be used to help train future versions, and that you shouldn't give it any sensitive data. This should be common sense in today's "always-online" tech world: read the fucking EULA, and don't send things over the internet you don't want being stored. My parents told me never to write something down if I didn't want anyone else reading it; this is the same concept.

2. AI art models contain stolen art. AI models are trained on absurd numbers of images. Stable Diffusion's dataset consists of over 2.3 billion images. That's something like 115 terabytes of data. The distributed Stable Diffusion model is 4 gigabytes. 0.003% as much data, if I did my math right.

This is a destructive process, meaning that it's impossible to get the original training data from the AI model. Nobody's distributing art, stolen or otherwise; they're distributing a mathematical codification of "what art tends to look like."

3. AI art models are collage machines. This one is a bit tougher to discuss, because it's only mostly wrong. Here's a simplified description of how Stable Diffusion (aka the most common AI art tool) works: it's fed that 2.3 billion image dataset, each image having been artificially "noised" (kind of like how JPEG compression artifacts work, but more so). Each of these images also comes with a text description of the image. Then it's shown the original images, as a goal end result. This is during the training phase, where it tries to come up with the numbers that make up its "brain" (not actually a brain, of course, because it's not sentient).

Essentially, the model is saying "how do I take a shitty image, and make it look right?"

Afterwards, a few images and text descriptions have been held back, and it tries to denoise them itself without having ever seen the original image. The training tool measures how accurate it was, and then changes the numbers inside the model to reduce that error amount. Over hundreds of thousands of iterations, this process repeats, until we decide it's "good enough."

Finally, the end result can be used to denoise an image that is itself completely random noise. We still provide a text input to direct the model, but the AI is essentially hallucinating details that aren't there. It's just not actually hallucinating, because again, it isn't sentient. It also doesn't understand what it's making. AI models don't think about how many fingers a human has, they don't count objects, they just go "here's what blobs of flesh-colored pixels tend to look like."

Now, if the AI doesn't have a lot of training data, it can try to exactly reproduce the art that's been used to train it. Spending too much time training the AI model will lead to this, in what's called "over-fitting"; too much of the training data has been stored in the AI model, and it's now just replicating the original data. The thing is, "over-fitting" is something AI models actively try to avoid. Nobody wants a 1-to-1 reproduction of existing art, after all; the entire point is to make something new.

3.5. Yeah, but signatures show up in generated images! They do! They're also entirely illegible, most of the time. The AI can tell "hey, most pieces of art have these squiggles in a corner, so this piece of art probably does too." It doesn't know what a signature is, how text works (let alone cursive), or anything else. It just sees a pattern and does its best to follow along.

In fact, the most legible watermark I've seen is for Getty Images; they've had so many images with the exact same watermark plastered everywhere on them that the AI was trained to recreate those original images by…plastering the watermark everywhere. Whoops.

4. ChatGPT is lying about (X). Okay, I see this one way too often. ChatGPT is, in essence, a very complex auto-complete. It's like those memes of "type (phrase here) on your phone and press the middle auto-complete and see what comes out." It's just really, really good at mimicking written text.

It does not understand what it's saying. It has no capacity for rational thought, or calculation, or anything. The fact that it appears to do so is a monument to how complicated of a model it is.

Large language models are categorized on the number of "parameters" they have; essentially, you can think of these as variables in a function. For the purposes of basic roleplaying AIs, you can get away with 13 billion parameters. These AIs won't have much "knowledge," but they can carry a semi-convincing conversation about mundane topics.

For LLMs that try to answer questions, models will usually use 30 billion to 65 billion parameters. 65 billion is about the limit for commercially available hardware. This is like training an auto-complete on the contents of Wikipedia. It has a lot of reference points of factual statements, and it can string them together convincingly, and so maybe it'll spit out something correct.

ChatGPT uses way more parameters than even that. It cannot be run on a home computer. It's a massive AI model that's very good at auto-completing text. It is still just a fancy auto-complete. It has no guarantee that anything it says is true. Please, please, do not blindly trust anything that ChatGPT tells you.

Was AI Training Done Ethically?

Here's the thing: there's no objective truth of ethics. We decide what's right and wrong based on our current cultural understanding, and changes to that culture will drastically impact our codes of ethics. Not only that, but ethics varies on an individual basis — there are certainly some people out there who would argue all kink is inherently wrong, for example, and others who disagree. So I can't provide an objective answer here for every single person.

What I will say is this: most existing research regarding the internet has used web scraping. If I can observe some non-identifying data without taking action, then I can use that observation in my research. It's historically been the responsibility of website owners to manage web scraping allowances; they pay for server bandwidth, after all, and it can be difficult to differentiate between a researcher gathering data and a malicious actor launching a DDoS attack.

These AI models have been generated by researchers, following this established code of conduct. The Stable Diffusion model was made freely available by those researchers. Companies took the model, tweaked things, and sold access to it (and the hardware they run it on).

At what point did the ethical issue occur? Does web scraping need to be regulated, ensuring researchers follow a stricter process for collecting data? If so, is there a specific type of data that should be restricted? "Personal data," like names and other information that can be used to identify an individual, is already restricted; maybe we can come up with some rules for web scraping involving copyrighted information?

Maybe instead the ethical issue occurred when the AI model was released to the public — but I'm personally not a fan of that, as peer review and reproducibility are key to the scientific process and probably shouldn't be discouraged…

Maybe it was when corporations sold access to their own versions of the model? Should there be limitations on "fair use" such that not-for-profit research can use web-scraped models, but for-profit corporations cannot? Where does something like ChatGPT fall, given that it has a free access tier (rate-limited, to protect against spam)?

Is AI Generation Art

Yes. Full stop.

Look, there's no way to consider "what makes art" without including things created by computers with human oversight.

If you're going to exclude AI art, how can you do so without excluding:

Glitch art

Procedural generation

3D art

Fractal art

Shader art

If you do exclude those, I think you're wrong…but at least you're consistent about believing digital artists are talentless hacks, I guess?

Is AI Generation Ethical?

Again, I can only really speak to my own understanding of morality. Namely, this:

If you use AI art to replace hiring human artists when you have the capability to do so, you're a piece of shit. Full stop.

If you're an artist who uses AI tools to augment your existing processes: cool! I want to hear more about yourself and your work!

It doesn't make sense to me to say that using Stable Diffusion is wrong just because it was created unethically; if that were the case, it'd also be ethically wrong to use Procreate because Apple devices are created in sweatshops. There's a boundary of usage versus creation, here.

Beyond that, here's the thing: AI generation is a tool. It is not a replacement for humans with actual working brains. You can make art with AI, but whether you can make good art with AI is up to your ability to use your brain.

I find that the way most people use AI art tools has more in common with art direction than traditional art. That's still a skill, and one that has to be worked at. It's what makes me feel weird about claiming the title of "artist" — I don't think art directors call themselves artists?

Finally, AI usage falls under the same ethical qualifications as any other tool usage. It's equally as wrong to use AI to manufacture propaganda as it is to deepfake propaganda as it is to photoshop propaganda as it is to take manipulative photos to create propaganda —

I personally think it's fucked up to mimic other contemporary artist's styles. If the artist's work has passed into the public domain? I think anything created "in the style of Monet" is more about Monet than an actual attempt at forgery. But that's a more personal ethical boundary.

But really, it boils down to this: the tools exist. Don't post other people's work on the internet, whether that's on Wattpad or ChatGPT. But the models exist, and some random person using Stable Diffusion isn't gonna affect whether or not those models continue to exist.

The technology is already out there; the genie isn't going back in the bottle. It's too late to argue over whether or not the tools should exist in the first place. Let's actually discuss what responsible usage looks like.

#ai art #discourse

[writing-by-stormy]

Using Other Creative Mediums to Improve your Writing

(Obligatory do not plagiarize disclaimer!! Inspiration is good, copying is just lazy)

Recently I’ve been trying to improve my writing, primarily my descriptions of things like setting and body language, and a lot of writing cheat sheets and advice just wasn’t cutting it. It wasn’t bad—and actually gave me a place to start—but I felt like something was missing. However while practicing I was hit with an idea and it actually helped me quite a lot so I hope someone finds some use it in too :]

Here’s some ideas I came up with, however this is by no means an exhaustive list and honestly it’s up to you to decide what is and isn’t helpful for you, as everyone thinks and creates differently.

1. Photography/Art

This is the one I started off with. I’m a very visual person and was really struggling with setting a tone when it came to the descriptions of my settings. I could technically paint the picture but not well, and it would really slow down the story rather than adding to it as intended. This is where artwork and photography came in, I realized that (at least from how I approach it) the ways an artist conveys mood, tone, and meaning wasn’t all that different than how I was trying to. They were creating a literal visual representation of an image they saw, and I was trying to get others to imagine what I was imagining. So I compiled a collection of photos and artwork that really resonated with me and started studying exactly why. Here’s some things I did that I found useful:

Compiling images based off subject and/or setting (I.e. forests, the ocean, desert, etc.) and comparing and contrasting them. If all your images are of a river, then what common themes do they share? What’s different? What’s the difference between a tranquil river and a harsh, dangerous one (outside of just the obvious). How do different things in the environment contribute to or take away from the focus that you’ve placed on the river? Do any of them have a different mood? Create a different atmosphere? Are there any you like more and why?

Compiling images based off mood/themes. This one really helped me notice the subtle details that contributed to tone such as how vast or crowded a scene is, where the photographer/artist chooses to emphasize, etc. when it comes to this you could compare and contrast too, or if you want something more challenging you could try listing what every detail contributes to the overall image, as well as what (if anything) could’ve been left out without changing much.

pretending you had the power to change their appearance. say you’re working with a picture of a lake, what would change if you wanted to add an island in it? Would the island be the new focus or not? How much detail could you add before it became over saturated? How much could you remove before it became uninteresting? If the picture was taken during the day, how would the way you describe/imagine it change during the night?

Writing down the context you get from the image, as well as trying to imagine your own. Say you’re working with the image of a gorgeous meadow, and in the background are some awe inspiring mountains. Can you tell based off the image whether it’s remote or not? If it is, what about the setting changes? Is it harder to reach? Are the trails and roads overgrown, barely visible, or so old and rocky cars can’t pass over them? How far would you say civilization is? What would bring someone there? What might happen if there was a sudden influx of people in the area, would it be overrun with tourism? Would they establish a settlement and if so what resources would they have? Is the remoteness part of what makes it beautiful—like a nice vacation from society—or does it create a feeling of isolation?

2. TV Shows/Movies/Animation

There’s a few more options for this category considering it in and of itself is a form of creative writing. Honestly there’s endless inspiration to be found in your favorite shows and movies, so in turn there’s endless opportunities for learning from them. Here’s just a few I came up with

Writing dialogue. Does your character have to small talk their way out of an awkward situation but you’re struggling to convey the discomfort? Do you want to write an inspiring monologue but aren’t sure how to go about it? Want to give characters a distinct voice and speech patterns but can’t think up your own? Luckily there’s nearly endless scenes to use as a reference for your dialogue difficulties!

Learning about body language/character quirks/behavior. This is what I like most about shows and movies, because every single thing about how a character acts is unique to them. You can read all the lists you want but its different when you get to watch how it actually looks on a person.

Watch something you don’t like and make a list of reasons why you don’t like it as well as what you’d change about it if you were one of the people writing/producing it. Anything from the delivery of lines to the way the camera is angled could provide insight into what elements of a story you value the most.

Getting to see character traits in the flesh. This is especially helpful for certain characteristics that a lot of writers tend to get wrong, such as charisma, being humorous, manipulative, etc. It can be helpful to study these traits and read up about them on your own, especially if that’s how you absorb your information, but a persons personality affects the way they move through the world and interact with others, and sometimes it can help to witness this for yourself.

Chose a detail to change, and brainstorm the ways it would change the story. If the heroes mother never dies, would he have the motivation to leave the house? If the protagonist didn’t have their sidekick(s), would they come out on top as often as they do? If they weren’t bound by their love for their childhood sweetheart, how much sooner would they have left to pursue their dreams? What if the main trio grew up in the city rather than a small town, would their struggles be different?

Other/Miscellaneous:

also known as the ideas that don’t fit into the other categories, fit into more than one, or that I struggled to come up with enough ideas to make them categories of their own.

You can compare and contrast the ways stories have been adapted across different mediums. Things such as the anime adaptation of your favorite manga, the live action version of an animated movie, etc.

Compare and contrast different interpretations of the same trope or story (Ex: different Mentor characters or different adaptations of Beauty and the Beast)

Listen to a fiction/anthology/storytelling podcast and pay attention to the ways they establish a scene solely through audio and dialogue

Watch a live performance and pay attention to the use of props, costumes, and actions to tell a story

Play a video game and think about how you’d go about describing it, as well as how context changes the way you’d go about that. How would you describe Minecraft as your setting? If your main character wasn’t from that blocky world what would they focus on the most? Alternatively, if they were from Minecraft how would you go about describing things that would seem odd to us but not to them? Would the graphics and mechanics of the game reflect over into that reality too?

Happy writing, I hope there was something of value to be gained from this and that you have a lovely day/night <3

#writers and poets #writing #writerscommunity #writing inspo #writing ideas #writing tips #storytelling