Damn das crazy @topsytop347 can't believe how good the AI generation of Clip Studio Paint timelapses was back in 2022, even showcasing characters drawn in each separate layer!
Anyways, don't baselessly accuse random small artists' work of being AI generated, not only do you look silly as hell but you also give a platform for people who hate artists to further bully folks for having specific styles (that were all fed into bots! Literally not their fucking fault their style was stolen!) or for just simply having imperfections in their works.
That was a genuinely insulting comment, really don't have much to say lol. Lmao even.
Here's the original post in question in case anyone's wondering what's the 'AI-looking' art we're talking about is: https://www.tumblr.com/nuclear-smash/693038436893999105/tragic-tale-of-michael-afton
Allow me, if you will, a moment to go absolutely rabid over your blog and everything that goes on here. I’ve always loved history but the USA hardly likes teaching anything that isn’t American History. I’ve forgotten how much I love WORLD history, specifically the rise and fall of empires.
I’ve been smothering myself in your posts and I love it ALL. JC, Pompey, Crassus, Sulla, Octavian, Antony, Cassius, and Brutus. Wow what a mood. You don’t miss on your references or your modern AU’s and I���m over here like- I’m trying to buy whatever web comic you put out, book you write, etc.
Also, if you’d be so kind to list some material with like themes to start breaking into these topics. Preferably materials in English or translated materials.
HELL YEAH LET'S GO
if you really want to start on the ground floor for breaking into something, I'd recommend my personal favorite approach which is picking the figure that's most interesting to you, reading through plutarch's biography on them (free! online! in english!) and then putting their name through a jstor search and reading whatever sounds fun.
other than that, the primary theme I've been wandering around in lately, so these are the materials I've been really enjoyed related to that:
The Deaths of the Republic: Imagery of the Body Politic in Ciceronian Rome, Brian Walters
The Game of Death in Ancient Rome: Arena Sport and Political Suicide, Paul Plass
Ideology in Cold Blood: A Reading of Lucan's Civil War, Shadi Bartsch
Statius and Virgil: The Thebaid and the Reinterpretation of the Aeneid, Randall T. Ganiban
Rome, Blood & Power, Gareth C Sampson
I also have a comparatives tag where I play connect the dots with texts that made my brain go brrr
sometimes i remember the time that a professor told me my essay was the most interesting and insightful in the class and then i started skipping that class and couldn’t bring myself to turn in any more essays to her and i’m like damn i should go back to therapy and deal with that
trying to figure out what it was that actually made me so obsessed with bbc johnlock back when it was airing. probably mass hysteria and being 14. but if I had a go again I could probably manipulate myself into having real pure unadulterated emotions and thoughts about it.
The 1st house is the house of self, it represents the native (aka the person) – their personality and physical body, their interests and view on life, etc. The 1st house focuses on the individual, unlike many other areas of the birth chart. The Ascendant is always in the first house and their positioning sets up the rest of the chart – much like your founder sets up your legacy family. Explore, grow and create a legacy of your own. The goal of this Gen is to find your sims’ identity.
Capricorn risings are hard working and crave stability above all else. This can give them the impression of being a workaholic and stand-offish, but Capricorns don’t want to waste the precious life they have on the simple things. Ruled by Saturn, Capricorn can be lured into the false sense of maintaining aspects that don’t need to be. As a result, Capricorns can be seduced into the idea of settling into comfort, not reaching beyond to new pleasures and smelling the roses.
writing a big post on trauma bonding and the whole 8-2-4 triad…
Stay tuned.
I truly believe that the 8-2-4 path is where trauma bonding lives. Not to say that other types can’t get involved in trauma bonds — every other type has a connection to 8 2 or 4, do they not? — but this 8-2-4 triad is really the center where the whole addiction vulnerability (8) and the romanticisation of interpersonal chaos (4) occurs.
Sometimes people get their start in fandom with something like, idk, the MCU or light action shows like Supernatural or children's fantasy like Warriors (this last example said with love), where the writing is an inconsistent mess, characterization can change on a dime, there's no themes stronger than like "family" or "stop the bad guy from changing our way of life". And their fandom experience is taking the hints of interesting ideas presented and dropped and spinning them into something interesting, or just fluffy and fun, and then discarding the rest.
And then these people come to a piece of art that like. Actually has themes and good writing and a coherent vision, but they're still trained on The Giant Trash Heap That Must Be Sorted Through, so they start their routine of excising fun yaoi moments and throwing the rest in the trash, except now the rest is like. A professionally made passion project by a group of skilled writers with a hundred years writing experience between them, and this fan is writing the same coffee shop AUs as ever. And it makes something that feels same-y and fandom out of something unique and well-made and, well, interesting.
And like. That's their prerogative, more power to them, but it makes me wanna pull my hair out to talk to these people about a piece of media I actually care about beyond that Trash Heap level.
And if you're someone whose only fandom experience has been Trash Sorting and you're running into people arguing with you abt their favorite piece of media, give them a second thought I guess?