#i know the thing right now is becoming more and more like ''well ai art can be good for SOME things''

[brainrotdotorg]

lrb im so angry right now. i think the prevalence of AI Art goes hand in hand with something im also pissed about- the death of the attention span

everything is just made to be so . fucking fast. people dont wait for things anymore- myself included! one of my resolutions for this year was to reclaim my attention span because ive lost so many hours to a time vampire algorithm or my own impatience. i feel like i cant sit down to do things anymore. its maddening.

and this doesnt just relate to the CREATION of AI art- obviously, obviously someone who is impatient and wants things NOW isn't going to spend the time waiting for a quality product. not when they could have something "sufficient" right now. they'll just generate it. but i think the worst part is when viewers of that AI art will look at it and see nothing wrong- all because they didn't LOOK at it.

if you aren't really observing, not really drinking in what you're looking at, just letting it slide over your eyes, then you're not going to notice all the fucked up blurry patches, or the way the dimensions are all off, when parts blend and there are random color splotches grafted onto it with no meaning. no one cares to look closely enough to see whats wrong. if it looks okay at a glance, why bother refining it? A glance is all people are ever going to give.

#god im just so. rghrghrghrgrghr #fuck ai art. i hate ai art. #i know the thing right now is becoming more and more like ''well ai art can be good for SOME things'' #and im sure its a tool that people can learn how to use properly. #but people arent fucking using it properly. they arent. #corporations are advertising for their products with AI Art instead of getting actual artists to draw for them. #art is automated. and that makes me sad.

[lackadaisycats]

Hey Tracy! Have you heard about the new Ai called Sora? Apparently it can now create 2D and 3D animations as well as hyper realistic videos. I’ve been getting into animation and trying to improve my art for years since I was 7, but now seeing that anyone can create animation/works in just a mare seconds by typing in a couple words, it’s such a huge slap in the face to people who actually put the time and effort into their works and it’s so discouraging! And it has me worried about what’s going to happen next for artists and many others, as-well. There’s already generated voices, generated works stolen from actual artists, generated music, and now this! It’s just so scary that it’s coming this far. 

Yeah, I've seen it. And yeah, it feels like the universe has taken on a 'fuck you in particular' attitude toward artists the past few years. A lot of damage has already been done, and there are plenty of reasons for concern, but bear in mind that we don't know how this will play out yet. Be astute, be justifiably angry, but don't let despair take over. --------

One would expect that the promo clips that have been dropping lately represent some of the best of the best-looking stuff they've been able to produce. And it's only good-looking on an extremely superficial level. It's still riddled with problems if you spend even a moment observing. And I rather suspect, prior to a whole lot of frustrated iteration, most prompts are still going to get you camera-sickness inducing, wibbly-wobbly nonsense with a side of body horror.

Will the tech ultimately get 'smarter' than that and address the array of typical AI giveaways? Maybe. Probably, even. Does that mean it'll be viable in quite the way it's being marketed, more or less as a human-replacer? Well…

A lot of this is hype, and hype is meant to drive up the perceived value of the tech. Executives will rush to be early adopters without a lot of due diligence or forethought because grabbing it first like a dazzled chimp and holding up like a prize ape-rock makes them look like bleeding-edge tech geniuses in their particular ecosystem. They do this because, in turn, that perceived value may make their company profile and valuations go up too, which makes shareholders short-term happy (the only kind of happy they know). The problem is how much actual functional value will it have? And how long does it last? Much of it is the same routine we were seeing with blockchain a few years ago: number go up. Number go up always! Unrealistic, unsustainable forever-growth must be guaranteed in this economic clime. If you can lay off all of your people and replace them with AI, number goes up big and never stops, right?

I have some doubts. ----------------------

The chips also haven't landed yet with regards to the legality of all of this. Will these adopters ultimately be able to copyright any of this output trained on datasets comprised of stolen work? Can computer-made art even be copyrighted at all? How much of a human touch will be required to make something copyright-able? I don't know yet. Neither do the hype team or the early adopters.

Does that mean the tech will be used but will have to be retrained on the adopter's proprietary data? Yeah, maybe. That'd be a somewhat better outcome, at least. It still means human artists make specific things for the machine to learn from. (Watch out for businesses that use 'ethical' as a buzzword to gloss over how many people they've let go from their jobs, though.)

Will it become industry standard practice to do things this way? Maybe. Will it still require an artist's sensbilities and oversignt to plan and curate and fix the results so that it doesn't come across like pure AI trash? Yeah, I think that's pretty likely.

If it becomes standard practice, will it become samey, and self-referential and ultimately an emblem of doing things the cookie-cutter way instead of enlisting real, human artists? Quite possibly.

If it becomes standard industry practice, will there still be an audience or a demand or a desire for art made by human artists? Yes, almost certainly. With every leap of technology, that has remained the case. ------------------ TL;DR Version:

I'm not saying with any certainty that this AI blitz is a passing fad. I think we're likely to experience a torrential amount of generative art, video, voice, music, programming, and text in the coming years, in fact, and it will probably irrevocably change the layout of the career terrain. But I wouldn't be surprised if it was being overhyped as a business strategy right now. And I don't think the immensity of its volume will ever overcome its inherent emptiness.

What I am certain of is that it will not eliminate the innate human impulse to create. Nor the desire to experience art made by a fellow soul. Keep doing your thing, Anon. It's precious. It's authentic. It will be all the more special because it will have come from you, a human.

#art #lackadaisy #technology

[baddywronglegs]

I don't think I ever used to get "uncanny valley", like things looked either right or wrong and I didn't think there was anything between the two. Things that had that effect on others just looked off enough to me to evoke more disappointment than anything.

Is that an autism thing? It feels like one.

Anyway, that was before AI image generators came along.

You might've seen the post where @galadriel1010 showed how I came to be here, including a screenshot of me using Bing's image creator to show how badly a machine can misunderstand the concept of "centaur". I've toyed with image generation AI since it went public, and had it been done differently, it could have been an amazing tool in an artist's kit. Reference images on demand, content-aware fill so you never have to draw every individual hair or brick again.

That's not the direction they took.

Instead they tried to be art. But they didn't stop to ask what art is. They just shoved as much stolen art as they could in a black box and hoped if they boiled it long enough they could condense art from the vapours.

And now I get uncanny valley.

Because I've never seen a Midjourney or Stable Diffusion output or whatever out on the wider internet and not been struck by the jarring feeling that something is wrong.

I draw things on the line between comedy and body horror. My ideal reaction to anyone looking at my art is for someone to laugh "No!"; I can appreciate Slightly Off done well, and that's not what this is.

It's like playing Where's Wally but Wally is an extra finger, or a strand of hair which at some point becomes the furniture, or the fact that all of their teeth are incisors. The friendliest tooth, for the friendliest smile from a face which doesn't know what either friendliness or a smile is.

You can't get a pose reference from a computer that doesn't understand what your spine is for.

I'm grateful to the Willy Wonka experience for its part in the death spiral of generative AI as "art". Thank you for doing so little to mask the inadequacies and shortcomings of mechanised plagiarism.

[burnorgetburned]

EVEN MORE CLARA DOLL DETAILS:

So you know how the Dolls have their own distinctive clothes?

Guess who else has their own distinctive clothes!

That’s right. The multiple Homuras are actually Clara Dolls.

And that’s why ‘Homura’ is smiling.

Here they are! The one with the striped hat is Nekura (Gloominess or Pessimism) and the one with the flower is Mie (Vanity).

Here’s their descriptions from the art book.

[The second one to come was Gloominess. Walking out with a tapping sound, she sneered at Good-for-Nothing. “This is Good-for-Nothing! How very unbecoming.” These dolls are only disciples of Freedom, and are devoted to their lust for it.]

[The tenth to come running is Vanity. She exaggeratedly avoids Good-for-Nothing's head and says a few words. “I wouldn't be able to bear dirtying my cape with that sticky blood!” These dolls make fun of the witch's self-mutilation.]

Good-for-Nothing is Homura, by the way, but the Clara Dolls seem to consider Good-for-Nothing to be good for something after all after she splits Madoka. She turns into the Devil, and the Clara Dolls are stated to be “okay” with the Devil. If the young voices in the trailer belong to the Clara Dolls, then they also call her “Akuma-sama” now. Something like Mistress Devil, implying a sense of respect.

[… if they are not summoned, they will simmer. There are orders they will comply with, and also orders they will disobey. What they are and the witch herself's own magic are not well understood.]

At the end of Rebellion, Homura gave Madoka her ribbon back. She declared that they might become enemies in the end. Honestly, I thought that Homura would try her best to avoid Madoka entirely. The trailer suggested that Homura was meeting Madoka, though. Here’s the answer: it wasn’t Homura herself, but Gloominess, who wants freedom.

Now, I’m not sure how this situation works out. Do Clara Dolls have free will? Are they obeying Homura’s orders? Acting out Homura’s true emotions? Is Homura perhaps directly puppeteering them in order to fulfill her goals, or do they act on their own?

I find it likely that it’s a mix of both: some of them obey her, and some of them will try and fulfill her (probably very conflicting) desires, as familiars usually do. Gloominess is likely part of Homura who wants the freedom to talk to Madoka, for example, but Vanity seems to me like a Clara Doll who is obeying Homura. After all, she still needs magical girls to fight wraiths, at least until she finds a way to wipe them out.

[I'm Vanity (Mie). I'm pushing myself to the limit for someone.] And she is, of course. All of the theatrics, the calls, the organization of magical girls. These are things that Vanity is shown to engage in. All of this is for Madoka.

We see with Gloominess, at least, that she seems to be fulfilling a specific desire: in the background are white spider lilies. Instead of the red spider lilies that mean death, final goodbyes, and lost love, white spider lilies mean a hope for the future and a fresh start. Maybe this really is the first meeting for these two in a while, and she wants to be friends again?

Or maybe, being Gloominess, she wants to warn her about something.

[I'm Gloominess (Nekura). Forcing smiles tires me out.]

Then there’s this Homura.

Nothing about her clothes is very different. She is wearing ribbons as Homura in the wraith universe does, but look closely: the ribbons are different. They have some wavy stripes on them, while Madoka’s ribbons are plain. She does not correspond to any known Clara Doll.

However, there’s mentioned to be a fifteenth Clara Doll that is not yet born: Ai, representing love. This could be her. Is it love for others? Or love for herself? I’m hoping it’s the latter, but very likely it’s love for Madoka and her friends. This would explain why she’s trying to fight Homucifer in the poster, as Homura believes that she’s a danger to everyone else.

How can this be? Well, here’s a few options:

- The Clara Dolls are grown-up familiars. They ate souls, and they became a copy of their witch. This is a process that was explained to us in the original series, where some magical girls are stated to farm familiars by letting them eat people so that they would grow souls/grief seeds.

- The Clara Dolls are not familiars, or wraiths, but instead a secret third thing. “What they are and the witch’s own magic are not well understood”, as said in the Rebellion art book. They could be magical constructs of a different kind, but I do think that this would get into overcomplicated explanations quickly, so I favor the familiar explanation.

- The Clara Dolls could be familiars, but instead of eating souls they’re simply powerful enough to change their shape. Their strength is equal to the strength of a magical girl…. when Homura was a witch, before Homura became something more. It could also be energy from the contracts making them stronger. Maybe it’s me being sentimental, but I don’t like the idea of Homura letting anyone’s soul be nommed on.

Now, before there’s a panic about how they’ll juggle fifteen extra characters, here’s a few thoughts:

- Just because they seem different doesn’t mean they’re actually different. It might be that the Clara Dolls are a way for Homura to present herself. As Vanity, she might show off more, or have dramatic flourishes like her throne and her dress. As Gloominess, it might be that she doesn’t believe that her plans will work, so she tries to do what makes her happy. It’s likely that the Clara Dolls are just extra ways to explore Homura’s character. They’re parts of her soul, after all, and right now she is extremely powerful. She might simply want to keep her true self away from humans.

- They could work like projections. Homura wants more bodies to work with, but she has to filter herself through the Dolls’ personalities. This could result in a lot of juicy character interactions, as the things she tries to keep hidden are closer to the surface.

- Will ‘Ai/Mystery Homura’ fight against Devil Homura? Very likely! How can this be when they’re the same person? Well, who hates Homura more than Homura? That’s right. Nobody. Anyone can fight and argue with their self, it’s just usually not on the level that a reality-warper like Homura can manage.

If this is true, there’s plenty of interesting directions they can take it.

- Because the Clara Dolls have a degree of separation from Homura, they can show other characters things that Homura herself has ignored or locked away. Bad memories, affection for her friends, the resentment she must feel - everything from concern to a cry for help can be plausibly shown through them as the actors.

- Manuke (Stupidity) is specifically more naive/sincere than the others. Maybe interacting with this Doll would show the Quintet that there’s something more going on than a Devil who wants to hurt other people.

- If Ai represents a love for other people, Ai can have a strange character arc where she learns to value Homura/herself, and become self-love.

- On the other hand, Ai can represent self-love from the start, and because Homura looks very fucking unhealthy in the trailer, she only wants to stop her because she’s hurting herself. This option plays into the themes of self-sacrifice and happiness, which I believe to be some of the major themes that they’re going for.

- The poster could be misleading and Ai ends up fighting everyone but Homura. I find this the funniest option.

- Homura can hug herself. It’s possible. In fact, every character can hug Homura 15 different times.

Smiles are a Clara Doll’s default expression. We have yet to see Homura smile for real.

Is this going to get very ambiguous and confusing? Probably. But rewatching for details was the fun part in Rebellion, so I’m looking forward to it!

#walpurgis no kaiten #walpurgisnacht rising #pmmm #homura akemi #madoka magica #puella magi madoka magica #Homura also looks like she’s coughing in that final shot but I can’t find a way to put it in coherently #the Homuras on the tower are too far away for me to look at. sorry. #please don’t start saying things like ‘Ai is SELFLESS LOVE who wants to free Madoka and Homura is ‘SELFISH LOVE who wants to keep Madoka’— #I… disagree. I’d be happy to debate with you but send a message please #pmmm analysis #pmmm rebellion #homucifer #clara dolls #long post

[jackdaw-kraai]

The thing I think isn't talked about enough in all these conversations about "AI art" is how, even if you work out all the kinks, even if you get it to the point that it works perfectly according to the most lofty goals set, even if all that came true... AI will still disappoint when set next to even just a moderately skilled human artist. Not because of any technical flaws with the product, but because of its fundamental limitations as a tool.

AI, as we understand it right now, without all the grandstanding and doomsday predictions and near-mythological qualities we ascribe to it, works on binary. Down to its core, stripped to its studs, it works on binary code, and you see that reflected in the design. Every choice it makes, every result it produces, is a result of a million, billion "yes or no" questions asked of it that chain together into a coherent response. Endless amounts of "TRUE or FALSE" results spat out when data is fed into it, that string together to form a conversation, or an essay, or a painting, or a comic. At least, when trained on enough data to weigh the odds in favor of what the creators want it to do.

If you ask ChatGPT to tell you something about romance, it filters its endless data banks for what that training data it was given matches your request and what results in those tests were rewarded by its programmers and which were discouraged and based on all that, it begins making TRUE or FALSE choices with the odds weighed by that data. That's how all AI we currently have fundamentally work, and that, in and of itself, is not a bad thing. It's a tool, and tools are hard pressed to be evil. What it is, however, is vastly inferior to the process of a human writer for one simple fact: when asked a question, we have more options than to answer it TRUE or FALSE.

If you ask a human writer to tell you about romance, they too will draw upon all the memories they have stored away of what they know about romance and base an answer off of that. But they will also draw up all the knowledge they have on astronomy, to compare the feeling it creates inside to that of hydrogen fusing, and that of medicine, because it burns so bright inside that it feels like your rib cage feels like it should be alight from the inside until it looks like an inverted x-ray image. A human writer will visualize the way love feels and draw connections an AI couldn't fathom, because it was never trained to do so. And more than that, if a human writer tells you about romance, they won't tell you just about romance.

They will tell you about how romance happens.

They will tell you about what romance between a young Polish woman and a young Polish man living in what would one day be the powiat of Bieszczadzki on the border with Ukraine, but for now are just the Bieszczadzki mountains, in the spring of 1914 would have looked like. And they will tell you about how it looked like all the months afterwards as the young man is drafted into the army and their home is ravaged by WWI as the Bieszczadzki mountains become one of the most bitterly contested regions in the Eastern Front during the war. They will tell you about how romance, how the love blooming from it, cannot fix the damage wrought by senseless battles fought by powers so much greater than the two of them, but how it carries them through the war nonetheless.

And what's more, they will know enough about the history of Poland to parallel the growing love between these two young people with the growing, not-yet-formed modern state of Poland that will once again rise from the ashes of the war after having previously been partitioned by greater powers into non-existence.

A human writer will not only have the knowledge to do that, they will have the skills and manner of thinking necessary to form the thoughts that will lead to such a story and make it into something incredible. An AI, no matter how well you train it, no matter how good you make it at emulating a writer's style, will not be able to form the same thought process. Not because it is flawed, but because it simply isn't built for that.

An AI cannot experience nationalism or patriotism for a country, an AI cannot reason out how people might have lived in the absence of credible historic evidence when it runs up against a gap in its data, an AI will not understand the link between fragile, young love blooming in adversity and a country struggling to be reborn in spite of the greater nations around it that wish it would remain dead. It cannot do this, because it isn't based in "TRUE or FALSE" questions. It's based in the painfully human experience of complicated emotions, difficult thoughts, and yes, even deeply flawed ways of looking at the world that nonetheless are beautiful exactly for having those flaws.

An AI, at its core, with where the technology is right now, is a machine of averages. Even if we polish it to peak performance, that will not change. At peak performance, it will still give you an average of all the possible answers it could give, it will be technically flawless, and it will never be anything even close to a fraction of the lightning in a bottle that a writer with categorically shit technique can capture if their heart and mind are put into it.

And let's be honest here and step a foot outside of the bubble of speculation, just for a bit: AI will never, ever, give you an answer or story that pushes boundaries or makes you think like even the most technically incompetent but passionate authors are able to.

Because in order to push boundaries, in order to deliver a message, you have to be willing to make people uncomfortable. You have to be willing to be messy and raw to the point that your story bleeds. And even if we polished AI to perfection, even if, by some miracle of a completely new and fresh coding base, it could do all those things... the humans pulling the strings of the machine would never allow it to do so. Because if their machine produces stories that push boundaries, that have things to say, that make people uncomfortable, it's not going to be profitable. It's not going to be advertiser-friendly. It's not going to please the stock market. And let's be honest here, in the end, that's what matters to those people.

AI cannot write the stories that people want it to, that they truly want it to, because in the end, the stories we want to hear are not the stories it can tell. The stories we want to hear are, in the end, painfully human, in all the best and worst ways possible. And if you want a human story, if you want to have something like that lightning in a bottle, AI can never be more than a tool in making them instead of the maker itself. A potentially useful and innovative tool, but nothing more than that.

Because if you want human stories, no one but a human will be able to write them. And no one but a human will be able to read them and understand what's being said.

#wga strike #chatgpt #ai #ai critical #wga solidarity

[dragonwritersblog]

I’m looking for an artist to collab with for an AU

Hello! If you don’t know me already, my name is Dragon, the author of the TADC fics 5+1 and Royally Screwed (and also a funnybunny shipper). However, I am coming up with a totally new AU, something similar to the carnival and freakshow au as well as inspiration from Bendy and the Ink Machine, Poppy Playtime and Amanda the Adventurer.

I call it ‘The Amazing Digital REDACTED’ au.

In this au, you ‘the player’ play as Jax, an ex-employee of C&A returning to the abandoned building in order to find the rest of your work employees after a mysterious incident years ago. With hidden knowledge that he must enter the game in order to find them, Jax does just that while managing to retain his memories. Along with his accomplice Bubble (a helpful AI who wants to free the rest of the trapped souls) and some help from his friend Winter (yes Winter from 5+1 will be in this but that fic isn’t canon to this au) on the outside, Jax tries to fix his past mistakes and save everyone – especially a particular jester he loved and lost long ago.

Yup that’s right, Jax will be the main character of this au and you will be playing as him. Let me explain, there is a feature on AO3 that allows you to make multiple choices on how you want the story to play out, like a telltale video game if you understand what I’m saying. You will get to pick and choose how Jax goes about his adventure and receive more than one ending (with a canon ending as well). And yes, this au’s main ship is funnybunny as I believe that it deserves more recognition and I find that these two in this au are very interesting to explore (especially with their past).

However, this fic is going to take quite a long time to make and is going to be bigger than anything else that I have written in the past. That is why I want to team up with a fellow TADC/funnybunny artist (since I am not an artist and do better with writing and characters) and create a separate blog for this au to come up with comics and art together. If you’ve seen the blogs for the Carnival and Freakshow au’s, you know that with their comics and art they explore more of the world, drop some lore, do character sheets and explain the pasts of the characters. This is what I’m hoping for if I team up with an artist. This au will mostly be on tumblr however if it does well I might add it to twitter as well since I’m putting this post on twitter as well.

Here are what I have pictured for the characters so far.

Jax: Past name; Jack. Ex employee of C&A, main character and who you the player will be playing as. Before the ‘incident’, Jax used to work at C&A as part of a coding team, to make sure that there were no bugs before any games were released. While C&A wasn’t on his list of jobs to pick, it was the only one that seemed best due to the pay and the fact that they could pay for schooling for those with children. Since Jax has a little sister named Jane, and has no parental figures in his life, he takes the job in order to help pay for the both of them and to make sure that Jane gets a good education. Unlike his canon TADC counterpart, Jax is more quiet, tired and while sarcastic, isn’t all out cruel to everyone unless they are bad people (think Mike from the FNAF movie especially with his relationship with his younger sister). He becomes quite close with his boss’s daughter however, Penny (Pomni) with him starting to develop feelings for the shy girl. However, after the day of the ‘incident’ Jax is left with nothing but guilt since he knew things that contributed to that day. Now he has a chance to make things right and save everyone, and Pomni.

Pomni: Past name; Penny. Ex employee of C&A and daughter of the CEO Abel, Pomni is an extremely introverted and socially awkward person, due to being traumatised by her mother’s death. She and her father don’t have a good relationship, with reasons that will become clearer later. She was quite close to the past version of Ragatha, but other than her father, she doesn’t really have a relationship with anyone. She likes to work alone to focus on the numbers and accounting part of her job (she understands numbers more than people) until she meets Jack. Though Jack is usually a bit standoffish, he is sweet to Penny due to her shy nature and helps keep an eye on her throughout their jobs so that she doesn’t feel too overwhelmed. Overcome by his sudden kindness and protectiveness, Penny starts to develop feelings for Jax. However, after the day of the ‘incident’ she is now trapped in the game, forever a jester trapped in a box…until Jax shows up.

If you’d like to be an artist for this au and collab with me, you can send me a DM or @ me. Do either of these and a sketch of the characters and I will reach out to you and confirm that you can be my partner for this project.

Here are some visuals on how I envision the characters.

Jax:

Sans the goggles, think of Jax wearing this over his grey and dirty overalls, he could also be holding a makeshift weapon like a bat or a stick so that he can fight off enemies. This version of Jax is much more serious and he is ready to fight in order to get the job done.

Pomni:

(on the last pic, focus on the makeup rather than the outfit)

Overly baggy and childish, with blue and black instead of blue and red. This design is a reminder of her past trauma and as so, is implemented into her circus features. Due to it being too big for her, it makes it hard for her to run and escape, and the ridiculousness of it all is a huge slap in the face that this is her new life now and is fully erased of her past.  Even the makeup covers up any kind of normalcy on her face.

Well that’s it for now, I hope you guys take this into consideration and I hope you all have a lovely day/afternoon/night.

#dragon rambles #the amazing digital circus #tadc #pomni #jax #ragatha #gangle #zooble #kinger #caine #bubble #moon #sun #gloink queen #tadc gloinks #the amazing digital redacted au #my au #jax x pomni #pomni x jax #pomnijax #funnybunny #pomjax #jaxni #looking for artist

[plaguedoctormemes]

i'm not deleting my tumblr blogs but this whole debacle with the AI stuff is discouraging me to at least not post original content here and limit my time on social media in general. Also to be clear on my stance on AI, which I think is very much influenced by my background as both an artist and a professional graphic designer: I think it can be a very useful tool and I don't even necessarily inherently find it completely harmful. Some forms of AI are already well used and completely normalized, but I find most of the time generative AI as we know it is pretty harmful and its harms outweighs its benefits currently (largely grifts, scams and misinfo). It needs regulation desperately, but old cunt politicians are too dumb to really care about or understand how important the issue is right now. I do not believe that AI will simply peter off or crash. From a marketing standpoint, i feel like AI usage will cool off or become more specialized (like creating whole machines *just* trained on individual brands for personal use and whatnot) but I have no idea how far away that would be. I just believe there might come a time where everyone is over the "spectacle" of generative AI and will find it inaffective or inherently associated with cheapness. At least in the most base sense in advertising, it is generally much better to have your own photographs and original branded artwork as it proves authenticity. You can only see a illusionist do so many tricks before you're bored by them and expect them, and we're already getting to the point where even the average Joe is tired of hearing about AI and the future, and at least when it comes to art and writing i just... don't care? i don't give a shit about it. BACK TO TUMBLR: I'm aware that its likely that mine and everyone elses' posts here have already been scraped. My thing is that it's more the symbolism of Tumblr's "opt-out" choice: memorial blogs, inactive blogs, and so on are going to be scraped without consent. No banners or pop ups to notify users of this change, you either have to either HAPPEN UPON to see staff's post or see others talk about it to even know about it. Since the beginning of this whole AI boom i had no issue with AI data training as long as it's consentual and ethical, but obviously it most of the time isnt. Tumblr's method of rolling out this change was purposely underhanded. I'm never going to simply be "okay" or normalize in my mind the fact that big tech companies feel entitled to people's privacy- which i believe extends to our online lives. I don't think myself or anyone else should ever feel completely apathetic to the fact that people you don't know, that definitely do not need it, are making money off of you without your consent or knowledge. Just to be clear this isnt about what is and isnt "real art" or whatever for me. It's just a huge distraction from the main point, a big debate that will go absolutely nowhere. What's more important about it is that big techs and billionaires don't have interest in making the world a better place, they only care about eliminating our "distractions" that get in the way of them making money and accumulating more wealth. My solution: We need to make them deepthroat shotguns and machetes.

#violent text at the very end #long post #the doctor is in #also reminder im also posting on cohost #under Hade and PlagueDoctor #ive been busy w work this week but i plan on slowly putting all my stuff there

[dokidokitsuna]

...I just remembered I wanted to make my own statement on the AI thing. ^^;

So you've probably heard, but in case you haven't: Tumblr just sold out everyone's data to the AI trash compactors, they probably did it long before they gave us the option to opt out, and even if you do opt out they're probably still taking and using your work anyway (telling people to opt out instead of actually asking for their permission is already scummy business practice, but when it comes to AI it's functionally meaningless. :/ It's always "well, we're telling them not to use these people's data and we're hoping they'll be nice and go along with it" with no regulations or consequences if they decide to just steal everything indiscriminately...)

Despite that, I am not leaving Tumblr anytime soon. I'm looking into other sites*, but at this moment in time, I have nowhere else to go. ^^; Besides, I still like it here. When I left DeviantArt I was already getting sick of the place, having my art stolen regularly by "fans" and paradoxically getting less and less interest in my work over time. By the time the devs turned the website into eye-blinding slop with Eclipse, I was more than ready to move on.

But I still enjoy using Tumblr. I like writing long text posts that no one would bother to read anywhere else, I like answering asks, and I like the unique sense of humor and style among the users here. ^^ It would take a lot to force me out.

Also, I can take a little solace in the fact that AI-bros do not value "low-quality" art like mine. ^^; If messy cel-shaded sketches with visible pixels ever become popular, then I'll worry, but for now I think it's highly unlikely that anyone will want to wholesale regurgitate my art. If anything, I think prioritizing it in their datasets would only make them worse...and on that note, if you do have "high quality" detailed/painterly/semi-realistic art that would be targeted, I'd recommend 'poisoning' it with Nightshade/Glaze. Although I heard a rumor a while back that AI is "building immunity" to Nightshade and already learning to work around it, but I'm really hoping that was just a wishful lie from the trash compactors themselves. I haven't heard it repeated since then, so I think it's still worth a shot. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

So anyway, like the post I reblogged said, I think the best thing we can do now is to make it clear that WE DON'T WANT AI ART. We don't care how easy it'll be to instantly generate thousands of hours of mindless 'content' to look at; we don't want it. Since regulation is lagging so far behind (wanna know why Disney's copyright hounds didn't shut this down on sight? Most likely, they're hoping to profit from it down the line) the only way to fight this right now is with individual litigation and consumer demand.

Don't support projects made with AI**; don't hate-watch them or spotlight them. Focus your energy on the millions of human artists who are still here, and need your support now more than ever.

*I've heard people mention moving to Twitter and/or Artstation: fam, you're jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire. ^^;;; IIRC, Arstation was one of the FIRST art sites to start flirting with AI, and Twitter has been selling off its users' data for several months already. Go there if you must, but don't go under the impression that it's "safer".

**Please keep a cool head when discussing AI art, and keep in mind that it used to mean something other than "mass theft". Artists have and still do create AI tools that are built on limited data sets with permission/compensation, that are used to aid them in their work and encourage human artistry (Vocaloids and DAW's, for instance) rather than stamp it out. Until a specific word evolves into popular use for exploitative AI, we're kinda stuck with this confusion, so remember to get the facts before you speak out.

P.S. Praying every night that this is a dumb fad that will soon die and go to the same hell as NFTs. >_< Praying every morning that the influx of AI art into its own datasets will eventually corrupt itself and make it useless. >_< >_< Praying every afternoon for both at once! >_< >_< >_< Like to charge, reblog to cast, all that

#musings

[qianqiancandyjar]

Ninjavember 2023!

Here's completed version with a bunch of explaining below each picture! Just scroll down if you don't want to see me blabbering. (I tried to go short as much as possible)

(I have a lot of AUs and headcanons that only exist in my head and my sketchbooks. Forgive me for wanting to spill them out.)

Day 2: Randy was listening to music with earphones so he didn't know Theresa was sitting next to him. Imagine how embarrassed he would get when he knows.

Day 8: Tech-Ninja AU. It's about machinist Randy being set up by Mcfist for murdering the town hero Ninja with his invention, the Tech-Ninja armor. Then the spirit of the destroyed Nomicon travelled to his armor and become an AI, choosing him to be the next Ninja. So Randy accepted it and was determined to make up for what he caused, when nobody except Howard, the boss of Weinerman industries, trusted him.

Day 10: Apocalypse AU. It's about Randy lost the battle at the end of season 2 and became the prisoner of the Sorcerer. The Nomicon was handed to Howard before that, and they later recruited survivors to form a resistance against the Sorcerer. Then Randy was stanked, but instead of turning into a monster, he was brainwashed and given the power of creating his own red and black stank. And- You know what will happen. (Inspired by the Darkness of Randy Cunningham)

Day 13: Elemental trial AU. You can say it's my take on what will happen in season 3. The Carp god was under the cover of a random carpfish as Norisville mascot. After a series of events it was awaken and gave Randy the power of Ice Rage.

Day 14: I think there's more than just the blood of First Ninja's brothers, since nobody knows how to destank people at the beginning...

Day 17: The Warrior might have been living or sleeping there, waiting for some ninjas to wake him up or consult him about his forbidden arts. (Ha, It's kinda like Eclipsa in Star vs. the forces of Evil)

Day 18: Or it can be called the New Generation AU. In the future, Randy took the place of Messager as well as the Ninja Guardian, while Brent became the new Sword Smith and Sorceress became their main villain. I am not really good at designing OCs so there's no next ninja yet.

However, I read a fanfic of another fandom in the form of CYOA, and it gave me new idea: just let the reader be the next ninja, it will be fun, too. (Also, this AU was inspired by an RC9GN fanfic titled from the past to the future, where future Randy became Ninja Guardian. But I couldn't find it on fanfiction.net any more. Has anyone read it? I didn't dream about it, right?)

Day 19: During that time I got even crazier after I read Enter the Nomicon. It's hard to believe I had a crazy period of shipping Randicon, even for myself. Especially weird for me since I now have a completely different view about Nomicon (peek at my Yokai Ninja AU comics). Time really can change a person, wow.

Day 21: Yes, a whole page just for this headcanon. I used the screenshots in the show because it's too hard to draw. The barrier thing is kinda like the one that held Bill's power in the range of Gravity Falls.

Day 23: Danny: the Walking Air-Conditioner. Inspired by a chapter of Secret Quartet. Danny phased his hand through the scarf. Just imagine your friend put a cold hand inside your scarf in winter. *shiver*

Day 25: Besides Ninja vine ball, there are also spike ball, gas ball, sonic ball, rainbow illusion ball, tear ball and so on. I just pick the most common one from my ninja balls headcanons to put in here.

Day 27: You may see I prefer using numbers to refer episodes, because that's how I track and rewatch them. To be more specific, I list some keywords here: NomiRandy, First Ninja, Debbie, Tengu. As fellow RC9GN Fans I'm sure you get it.

Day 30: It's a half-baked AU thing. The flowers I tried to draw are rosemary?

Wow! I actually finished all the prompts! Thank you for holding the big event! @evilspiritweek

(I don't mind sharing more details about my AUs or headcanons. *wink*)

#randy cunningham 9th grade ninja #rc9gn #ninjavember 2023 #ninjavember #randy cunningham #secret trio #rc9gn first ninja #howard weinerman #theresa fowler #rc9gn sorceress #rc9gn tengu #rc9gn theresa #fan art #rc9gn nomicon #nomirandy #rc9gn au #rc9gn fanart

[ink-the-artist]

I saw some of your tags on your recent reblogs, and it made me wonder what you tink of the recent outcry against "AI art" tools? With your tags, it sounds like you'd have different thoughts compared to what digital artists posting about it right now, and it got me kind of curious. No pressure to answer publically if you think you'll get flak for it - I'm just curious to hear your perspective because of those pieces you resurfaced.

I typed out a bit long thing about my own thoughts, but then realised that dumping that in your inbox would be a little unhinged. TL;DR - I'm neither here nor there. Selling the results is wrong, at present at least, but the tools themselves... ehhh? are they really??

That's the jist of it. If you'd like me to, I can elaborate with some of the play in 5 acts that I edited out. For context, I do art but I don't want to pursue a career in art in the current digital age, and I've worked on """AI""" (text to speech vocalisation) in the past but I'm not a staunch defender or anything, I just know some stuff about what "AI" is.

the outcry against ai art is because people are worried it'll take the place of actual artists and more recently because there have been a lot of artists whos art has been used in these ai programs databases without their permission or against their will (I think there's even a few instances where they used art from dead artists.) And I definitely agree with the outcry against that. I don't think ai generated art can meaningfully replace actual human art because art isn't just about creating images, ai cant replicate the self expression and communication and, well, humanity of human art, but I do think in the future it may take some jobs away from artists if an employer/company can get the same thing they want for free or cheap from an AI as they could with a human artist. there is also a real concern that ai images (not art this time but photographs) will become convincing enough in the future that it can lead to misinformation being created and spread incredibly easily.

I use Artbreeder mostly and sometimes Wombo and I use it to generate photos rather than art, I like using the shittier programs bc the stuff they generate is very uncanny which works great for horror art lol. I also don't just post the thing I generate on artbreeder, all my ai posts are heavily edited and I'm basically doing photomanipulation and collage somewhat, they genuinely take a lot of work and time. Ive been inspired by uncanny ai images for my own horror art for a good while (back when that "this image is meant to simulate a stroke" post/hoax was going around, which is how I learned about artbreeder, then called ganbreeder) before I started seeing ai "art" become a thing or neuralblender get popular. Im rly into the idea of horror that comes from something that looks familiar but not quite right and you cant quite figure out what you're looking at. I think you can see the ai influence in some of these,

I think ai is a great tool for artists that should be explored, and I personally haven't seen people object to that use of it, there's artists that use it to visualize their ideas before making the art themselves or use it to help come up with ideas for their art. but i don't think just generating an image and posting that is really art, there has to be some element of transformation from you.

#long post #sorry about that lol #it has felt weird and kinda bad that the kind of ai art I do has been more and more associated with bad things #like nfts #the 'what is and isnt art' debate has been happening since humans started making art lol #and ive seen arguments that ai 'art' can be real art #without transformation or anything #because it can become meaningful if put in a certain context #which sure i think in theory thats true like we consider Duchamps stuff to be art #but ive really not seen anyone do this with ai 'art'

[genericpuff]

(about the bell post) i dont know anything about lore olympus but is there something inherently bad in using free stock images? like, thats what stock images are for right? i know that its probably lazy or whatever but is that the only problem? /genuine

Part of the issue with using stock photos is licensing. Like fonts, they're in abundance online and easy to snag for "free", but as soon as you enter commercial work, it becomes a legal minefield. Stock photos typically belong to either individuals or corporations that rely on people buying the rights to those photos to use them; if they don't, they could very well be sued for copyright infringement.

In that respect, emojis fall into a similar grey area. Some emojis are public domain/open source meaning they're free to use for everyone. But many are not. It's why different social media platforms and different phone providers use different emoji's - it's not purely for branding (though that is a factor as Facebook emojis have become distinguishable from Android emojis) but also for ownership.

So, in the legal sense, I do not know if the bell emoji that Rachel used in LO is legally hers to use, or if it's even subject to such laws (it could be an open source image meaning it's free-for-all). I'm hoping for her sake she's not breaking any sort of copyright ownership laws, but I'm also not a lawyer and wouldn't know how to get that information even if I wanted to lmao

Aside from the legal, it's also just... sigh I'm gonna get into more opinionated territory here, but even if something is open source, even if you're legally free to use a stock photo or other tool to create your comic, there's also the ethics/integrity of it. Lore Olympus is not a Canvas comic. It is not an indie hobbyist project. It's a commercial product with multiple people working on it behind the scenes, book deals, merch deals, a TV deal, and an upcoming feature at this year's SDCC, with Rachel headlining alongside Cassandra Claire (Mortal Instruments) and Jeff Smith (BONE). Webtoons is trying very hard to market LO as a 'flagship' series and convince the public that it can stand alongside other literature juggernauts.

What I'm trying to say here is, if Rachel did legally use it, it doesn't make it any less cheap. There's a lot of discussion in the art field over the usage of external tools and assets in art creation, especially here in the west. 3D models, AI shaders, gradient maps - there are tons of things that exist now that stand to benefit artists, but can be abused or used poorly, being used as less of a tool to benefit an artist with pre-existing skills and more as a cheap shortcut to circumvent actual skill/effort.

The bell emoji isn't the heart of the issue I pointed out in that post. If it were an isolated thing, if LO were an otherwise impeccable comic with high-effort art and just one little picture of a bell, it wouldn't be that big of an issue.

But LO isn't that comic. The recipe of its art development week after week has become very cheap and low-effort, and the bell is really just the cherry on top.

And just to make it clear, I do stand by artists being able to use tools that make their lives easier. None of this is to say it's wrong to use stock images, or 3D models, or gradient maps, or whatever have you. Those tools exist to help and can be used in fun and experimental ways to bring new perspectives and life to your work. And I'm not going to scrutinize whatever shortcuts are being used in a comic that's being made for free by a hobbyist or someone who's still learning.

But like all tools, there are still ways to use them to the detriment of your own work, either due to a lack of understanding as to how that tool works, or lack of effort to blend it into your work. It can make it glaringly obvious that third-party assets are being used, and can often distract from what you've drawn (the complete opposite of what most people are trying to achieve).

When I think of art shortcuts and tools being used poorly, I think of Let's Play and its stock photo background characters.

I think of Time Gate: [AFTERBIRTH]'s stiff default 3D models that result in lifeless poses and restricted body types, which I am VERY eager to move on from LMAO

I think of LO's 3D backgrounds with only 1-2 colors thrown in and the characters floating in front of them. Or sometimes no characters at all even when people are speaking.

And of course, I think of the emoji bell, which could have easily just been drawn as a door or an actual doorbell, and not some random grey bell copied and pasted from a Google search.

All that's to say, too much reliance on poorly-implemented assets can take a great piece of work down to a mediocre one. Of course, the assets definitely aren't the only issue with LO, but they are definitely a piece of the problem. There might not be anything 'wrong' with using assets, but they can still be used poorly or result in cheap-looking work and that's primarily what I'm calling out here.

#lore olympus critical #lo critical #antiloreolympus #anti lore olympus #ama #ask me anything #anon ask me anything #anon ama

[finelinens]

thinking about the current state of internet literacy actually makes me feel a bit ill, to be honest. it makes me feel scared for the future. editing is so easy and ai has become so commonplace and so well-trained (thanks to the enthusiastic participation of those using ai for "art" and those using ai for memes) that now we cannot even trust what is documented in photos and videos online. there is a serious dearth of education, resources to build an education, and even interest in getting an education in internet literacy. we live in an age of misinformation and so many of us are just more than happy to join in as long as it serves our own interests. it is genuinely very scary. yes i'm a dream fan so of course i care that he was just made a victim of a years-long smear campaign that was widely believed online with little to no substantiated evidence to support any of it. but that situation was, and continues to be, just a symptom of a much larger and much more insidious issue. truly, i am scared for the future of information. i don't know how we will be able to verify things, i don't know how we will be able to trust sources, and i don't know how we will be able to trust each other. i'm sure we will find a way, but i just fear the things that will happen and the harm that will be done in the meantime. look at this excerpt from the book "anti-social media" released 5 years ago, and just think about how things have progressed:

there are a lot of reasons to not trust institutions such as universities and government agencies, but we can't trust anything now and that may be an even more concerning issue. the author goes on to say "what has changed is the social dynamics of identifying as a member of a group that holds positions like climate change is fictional or vaccines are dangerous have found new ways to assemble and reinforce their practices of acculturation." the stances of fringe groups are becoming more and more mainstream because misinformation and disinformation are often given just as much social prevalence as anything else. i work in a library that holds current events discussions, so i see what happens when people get all of their information from social media and don't take any time to verify or even just think about what they see. because they likely just don't know how to go about that process. i hate to think that it's all willful ignorance, i can't think that or i'll go fucking crazy.

we can't trust each other and we can't trust any institutions of information, but we trust whatever google pushes to the top of the results and whatever twitter's algorithm puts on our for you page. it's dangerous. there is no filtering out the noise, it's just all noise all the time. i'm tired. i'm tired of seeing so much yet feeling like i don't know anything, because i can't know anything.

i'm being pessimistic right now and i don't know if i'm even making sense, i'm just typing out my thoughts, but i just fear for the future of information and i don't know what to do about it. i feel like i'm watching a car crash in slow motion.

#idk if i'll answer any asks about this because it bums me the fuck out to think about LOL i just needed to say it #i hope literally any of this makes sense

[t00nyah]

so. i was very bored. and on character ai there's an alternate timeline ai that can come up with things that could happen and such. so i was like. okay let's go wild let's make an au were octarians won the great turf war. so there it is, an au created with ai deciding what would change in characters' lives, what would they end up doing, and, of course, me finilazing it with my headcanons and adding some flavour to some of ideas.

so. yep. octarians won, and, just like in original series, the losing side, inklings, are living in the domes. in my head they still have the great zapfish, while octarians go into a more sci-fi direction and make their own power sources. inklings are...kind of almost erased from their history. i don't know why it clicked in my head, it just did, maybe there's a better way to implement things, okay. x)

onto the characters...

callie and marie didn't form a duet without contest and end up having the most ordinary jobs. i know, right?

callie is a teacher and marie is a journalist! i personally really loved callie as a teacher and i'm just. yeah. marie. you know. marie had me suffering.

i would have design notes here but there's not much to tell so if there's something catching your eye that you think might mean something - it probably does. idk.

i took pearl's money. that's right. now she's forced to work as barista. by me. i want you to know that it was VERY hard to decide what would pearl do now that i stole her money but holy fuck coffee shop aus got to me. (i'm also very proud of the logo i came up with hehe)

alright. so. there's a hard one. and by that i mean in my headcanons three's family is ... one of those traditional families ... you know what i mean. so... here goes kaori, using she/her and having a big identity crisis she's not really able to solve. a little hard when you're not so sure what to make out of it and don't know if you can tell anyone how you feel. kaori does not like when adults make the distinction between girl things and boy things, she's not that into skirts honestly, she's just wearing it to please her parents. kaori is studying to become a scientist to work on improving life in the domes. that's good, right?

speaking of scientists, of course there's an extraordinary - marina ida. we all know marina, she's too smart for all of us. she's helping in multiple researches and is very widely known. (and also gets lots of MONEY for that). *re-reads ai's entry on marina and looks away* UMM okay i totally forgot that part where she's also a professor in university. WELL NOW I KNOW the context to something else. maybe.

so, eight... nana in this au *looks at coroika*, is a student (idk, highschool maybe...i dunno i dunno i think i messed up) who got a bit carried away with a project. and started her research on inklings, because there's a theory going among the historians that the inklings still do exist... so nana, as a very passionate when she has interest octoling, goes to explore on her own! she gets into the domes and meets kaori eventually, who's...got a good eye on weird features and recognises nana as an octoling. not exactly friendly at first, but what can a squid like her do anyways?

eventually they kinda get stuck along because nana wants to KNOW. kaori just desides to go against her better judgement and give her a tour. and leads her to the best coffee shop she knows. they bond with each other eventually and become friends :) and nana works hard to get heard and get inklings to surface somehow maybe, though it doesn't seem like they want it THAT much? i mean, they're established their society already, why would they? they be chillin'. (but yes kaori gets to see the surface FOR SURE.)

i REALLY didn't want to leave four alone on her introductory pic poor lonely squid</3 so there she is! surume, that one school student who's drawing on each lesson(me). she's also *looks at ai's statement* is popular on social media for her art.

she doesn't really meet kaori that often, but when their class goes to see a college where kaori studies, you know, to show their possibilities, where they could go after school or something like that, so they sort of...know of each other? very awkwardly and formally have met each other? kaori will probably die of embarassment when sees surume again because thinks she made a bad impression? lol!

if you follow me you may have noticed that i'm projecting my gender crisis on three hard and usually the one they're consulting with is four... and it stays true to this au, i really want kaori to talk things out and, ay, it's way easier to open up to a stranger sometimes. so yeah. i think it will happen in my au. surume explaining kaori all the stuff about gender identity and sexuality because there's a little more of society pressure in this au... they'll get there eventually.

bonus: ref for marina in her regular clothing! she's so pretty...

another bonus: marina meeting a pretty barista...

so yeah. yeah. marina gets into the domes because nana has caught her interest with her project, so she meets pearl. because if pearlina doesn't happen the universe will explode and we all know that.

also there were doodles i made on our first wbf that you now know the context for :]

thank you for reading this far! it was... a long one... yep. i also really want to thank everyone who's following me fr fr i'm very happy to get feedback and to know that you enjoy my art! love ya'll<3 /p

separate versions under cut

#splatoon #splatoon au #takopolis au #thats what i call it FOR NOW bc i have no better name for the city :( #agent 3 #agent 8 #agent 4 #callie splatoon #marie splatoon #marina splatoon #pearl splatoon #FINALLY its been....*uses calc* ALMOST TWO WEEKS since i started #yeah no that's literally almost as much as i spent on 24hour setup and splatoween splatfest (its 18 days vs. 13 days)

[angelltheninth]

Angell, do you think there's an ethical way to use AI?

An ethical way, well not the AI we have right now cause it's at it's very core unethical, built on stolen data. In order to make them ethical you'd need to delete everything in their database and build it from the ground up with works from consenting artists. Although I will say that I think that bridge has been burned by now because AI techbros prove time and time again that they don't care about copyright or consent, or safety when it comes to scraping art to feed the machine.

But there are ethical ways to use it, as long as they are only used for a specific project and built by specific people. The best example I can give you there is the Spiderverse crew using AI that they themselves made to make the lines in the expressions of characters, which lends itself really well for the style Spiderverse is know for. That wasn't done to take away anyone's job or replace anyone but to make the workload on the team lesser. Which if you ask me is a good thing considering what they had to endure to make that movie on time.

So yes, there are good ways to use it, but I think that what the current AI proved is that the larger public doesn't give a shit about who they steal from, what they have to do, or the lengths they have to sink to in order to defend theft of art, writing, voices, animation, or faces. We have a lot of curiosity as humans, that's our nature but that shouldn't come at a cost of other people's livelihoods or in some cases their very lives.

If a team that works on a project develops an AI assistant to use as a tool for that specific project and nothing more then that, made on their own data and nothing else, like the Spiderverse team did then yeah, they can go right ahead, because then AI becomes what it should have been, a tool, not a replacement.

#angell replies #anon answered

[yfm-confessions]

I'll be completely honest, I think telescope was good but there's just something about YFM as a whole now that...I am just gonna rant about here.

So, first of all we should address the elephant in the room: the AI art that was used. Honestly, It was a terrible decision because indifferently from your views, it cheapened the music video; it was still, there wasn't any kind of action and I think that the fundamental issue is that it could have worked if they did something like what they did for a section in "damn I am ugly" (I believe) aka change their art style and animation style.

And it would have been MILES better AND it would have given actual artists/animators work, thus making for a much more compelling work with actual human contribution which would have given YFM more positive press, expecially counting how the other videos were of very varing qualities and the fanbase has been dissolving with the time (which also happened in gen 1.5 so history repeating itself ha ha (pain)). Because there are some actually decent visuals that could have been improved (like the stars in Deejay's hair) that I think are really cool but lack... humanity in them.

So now there is the other (baby) elephant in the room that are the new voices, and while I like Ben's voice replacement (I am the minority ig) Axel's is too...ooc??

It doesn't fit him at all, and I think that someone with an higher voice would be better in the role because it feels like RWJ just went "Well Axel is a strong, big guy so he must have a deep voice" and like no Ray. Not at all. He sounds more pop??? Jazzy??? Idk just one of those guys who do song covers on the clock app and that's not a bad thing, but it's AXEL!!! His whole personality is liking metal and he should have an higher voice, like Billie Joe ig??? I know that there are metal singers with deep voices, but his voice is not deep in YFMTS, and even if it was lower when singing, like Ben's, it would be THIS low.

Anyway sorry for ranting so hard about Axel, I just have really strong feelings about him and his impact on the song. But moving on, the rest was pretty alright and actually enjoyable; like yeah it's a pretty standard rap beat I suppose but it scratches your brain, the hook might be repeatable, but it's a hook that's kinda it's point. Steve saved this song honestly, if Axel was the only one singing the chorus or all of the guys togheter/separately, I would have like it WAY less.

I am so sorry for making this a confession but I honestly did it because I wanted to talk about how YFM I'd tiktok-fing itself and I got lost ranting (you have every right to delete this ask for it lol), but I think that the whole AI art and hook and lyrics and everything is more because YFM is kinda losing it's identity. I already touched in another ask about how YT shorts (which is Ray's main platform now) is full of AI art content, and while I think that it was actually used because Ray was actually trying to experiment, I can't but think that there is a deeper reason that is ingrained in the amount of AI art there is on the site. And I think that the reason is how yfm is becoming way less Ray's music project and more Ray's vtuber account; with the few releases and the yt shorts etc.

And I think that that's also represented in how the songs are becoming more pop sounding or catchy or smth, idk how to explain it but they feel more corporate? Which it's dumb, I know, but bear with me. When you listen to something like my balls, you can still feel the silliness that yfm was born from, just dumb meme rap. But it's kinda getting lost, the song aren't really that jokingly anymore I suppose, they take themselves more seriously and that doesn't really jive with YFM presentation imo.

I am gonna make an actual post with organised thoughts on my blog after I realise what's bugging me, but yeah I wanted to make a small ask and it turned into a long ass rant. Sorry I promise I won't do it anymore, I got carried away <3 /p.

i was actually gonna mention the whole corporate feel too. like there’s little humor in it, telescope is a prime example of that. it’s not like they’re trying to be more serious and have passion like some songs in gen 1.5. and they’re not trying to be silly either. it feels fake as hell a lot of the time, but usually the visuals make up for that. like in everyone clapped even though the songs kinda meh (BESIDES JESSES PART HE COOKED.) the animation is very silly?? so it makes up for it. but with telescope it’s just lifeless. but i hope it gets better. like i’m praying. i’m also hoping they stop making the ugliest merch ever holy shit it’s bad. what even are those hoodies.

#i still love you gen 2 puff 😘😘 #you’re my bookie malewife #yfm #your favorite martian #confession #🎤🛐 mod

[die-rosastrasse]

Sometimes, when we create we have to let go of the reception of what we have created.

I write fanfiction. 10-20 years ago, people would always review/comment. It was instant gratification. Lately, if I can ger one comment for a chapter of 10'00-2 000 words, I am grateful. People's behaviour with "free" or eas of access art has deteriorated. It's too much effort to show appreciation even if we feel it.

I focus on my joy of writing. Hoping that someone will be moved by my words but focusing on my own pleasure of wroting exactly what I want to read. If someone likes it : great. If not, well I'm enjoying my own writing.

I hope you find equal joy and satisfaction in the act of creation.

You create a lot of beauty and dreams... may you never stop.

Hi! First of all, thank you for reaching out. People never do, which is part of why I feel so resented by the world. Thank you for your kind words and a very well articulated message, which I absolutely agree with. I'm glad I'm not the only one who is noticing how beauty, photographs and creations have become quick, mass produced, single-use and lost in a sea of thousand new posts coming every second. I see that this is where the world is heading more and more, with AI "art", reposting stolen pictures or rewriting yourself to fit some aesthetic, and that makes me so scared for the future. And also, makes me even more motivated to spend more time on creating than on consuming, and being very peculiar about what I consume and how much. I understand your words about focusing on the joy and satisfaction of creating itself, it's the most important thing for me too, even it sounded like it's not. It's my favorite feeling right now: the need to create, paint, write, collage, take every single piece of myself and make something out of it with my hands. It's so beautiful and gratifying in itself and I'm at a point in my life when it's really all I want to do with my time. And I'm proud of my works anyway, I know I'm getting better for myself, I love the feeling of inspiration and I try to keep myself in this state as long as I can. The joy of making something is why I do what I do, nothing else is necessary and my private world is complete without approval of anyone else. But every once in a while, I remember that maybe if we put ourselves out there, someone will listen and sharing the beauty that we found or that we tried to make is the most normal, valid human emotion. And this, showing my precious pieces I made with adoration, and meeting not with hate, not love, but indifference, makes me want to throw up, go inside a hole and never go out. Why is that so hard? Why was I perfectly content with my work when it was just mine, but sharing it with others suddenly makes me hate it, no matter if it was well received or not? I will forever be creative because that's who I am in the depths of my soul and honestly I don't want to share my life with anybody now. But this feeling will always come again, the need to leave something after me, have some kind of legacy. Or simply inspire somebody and receive the same energy that I put in the world, or meet a single person who would give it some time, consciousness, curiosity. I don't know how to balance between hiding my world just for myself and the need to scream about it to everyone who would listen. I don't think there is a balance, just the terrible feeling of missing something on both sides. The inability to have it all is the reason for my crisis.

#ask #long post