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#like i get it's hard enough to get art credited but i feel with artists there's still a general conensus that you're SUPPOSED to tag them
hella1975 · 1 year
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me: yeah i didn't project too badly onto taob haha *sees a quote from taob randomly on a tiktok webweave about girlhood*
#HELLO?????? yeah zuko they girlhooded you. yeah no they transed your gender#idk if this makes sense but ur coping mechanisms are just sooo she/her#like do you have any idea how baffling this was like no tags no search no nothing it was just there by sheer luck#i saw it was a webweave about girlhood and i was like ohoughhee this will be good#got a few slides in. hello i recognise thAT FUCKING QUOTE WHAT IS HAPPENING#like it's such a niche quote and out of context like it was it could have been from ANYTHING#AND it wasn't credited which i'll get to in a second#but honestly i felt like a mother identifying her child through something incredibly niche like a single freckle or some shit#bc i was like 'this is such a nondescript quote and isnt a big enough moment for me to remember vividly and yet somehow i Just Know'#and low and behold i double checked with a cheeky ctrl+f on taob AND I WAS FUCKING RIGHT#WHAT THE FUCK#im a tad fuming there was no credit like the person used like 12 images and only 3 of them are Non-Tumblr Writing Quotes#and NONE got credited#like i get it's hard enough to get art credited but i feel with artists there's still a general conensus that you're SUPPOSED to tag them#but with writing people honestly just treat it like it's free real estate and the thing is it kinda IS especially if it's fanfic#but also..... why would you not just say who wrote that? like you clearly like it enough to put in ur little slideshow#so why not give credit where credit is due. annoying. bc now im like if this happened by pure fucking chance#then how many times has this happened when ive literally been totally unaware of it?#how many times have MY WORDS just been flung about tiktok without any acknowledgement that i wrote them?#idkkkk just how writing especially amongst tiktokers is treated as a lesser or watered down artform#that doesn't require the decency given to 'actual' art. i might just be being cynical bc i dont like tiktok tho lol#like girl (taob) what the hell are you doing at the devil's sacrament#taob
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suiana · 1 month
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(yandere! artist x gn! reader) (this was funnier in my head)
"..."
"..."
"Erm-"
"Just wait a minute... I'm almost done..."
You purse your lips, holding the position reluctantly as you eye the artist. You feel your body shiver lightly, a sign that the cold air in the room was starting to get to you.
However, you could only let out a small sigh, staring at the artist who was painting your nude body with the most focused look you've ever seen. You know things would be worse if you defied him.
What were you even doing right now? You couldn't believe you'd actually allow him to paint your naked body in exchange for money and some freedom!
But... It was just too tempting. Things were starting to get a little boring after all.
Plus, you know he'd make you model for him either way. You'd rather do it willingly and get rewarded than be forced to do it and get punished. And either way, you know that it wouldn't be sexual. You know he'd be too focused on getting everything right to focus on his desires.
"Darling could you come here please?"
He mumbles, eyes focused on the easel as he continues to paint. You feel yourself rejoice slightly as you stand up and make your way over to him. You grab his jacket and wrap it around your body.
You relish in the warmth, snuggling into his jacket. But your comfort didn't last long, for he made you sit in his lap as he pointed out some mistakes that only he could see.
"The lighting over here looks a bit too hard... And the strokes here-"
You didn't bother listening to his complaints. I mean, it's not like you were an artist or anything but even then, you could tell the painting was a piece of art. Everything looked perfect to you, and you couldn't see the mistakes that he pointed out.
But you suppose that it was because he was an artist and that was his art. Therefore it would make sense for him to critique it more sternly.
"Darling you're too beautiful... I can never paint you perfectly."
He mumbles, hiding his face in the crook of your neck. You freeze slightly, still not used to his touches before relaxing as you stare at the painting.
Even if you hated this guy for forcing you to be with him... You couldn't lie that he was an art genius. And you just couldn't understand why he thinks you're like this perfect being. This painting made you look like a heavenly angel!
"Um... I think the painting is amazing... I think it's good enough-"
"Darling, it will never be enough."
He looks up from his position, eyelashes fluttering as he tightens his grip on your waist.
"Why won't you understand that you're the perfect muse? Give yourself more credit..."
He sighs in bliss, nuzzling your neck with his cheek as you grow slightly exasperated with him. Damn, you can't believe that an NPC like you managed to get him to fall for you.
You shiver again, feeling the cold air hit your bare legs as you sit in his lap, enjoying the warmth his body radiated. Now, the painting looks done so...
"So um can I wear clothes now?"
"No."
"Damn."
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normansnt · 3 months
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Knight in shining armor
(Hazbin Adam x singer!male reader)
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(Not my art, idk whose sorry I got it from pinterest but credits to the artist cuz he would SO wear that I cant😭)
Warnings: fist fight
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"FUCK YEAAHHHHHH THATS MY BOYFRIEND MF" yelled Adam to a random person at your concert.
He always did that. Whenever he went to one of your concerts (always, I am not kidding the man has not missed a single one) he yelled to every one of your songs because he knew them inside out and after each song he yelled to someone that you're his boyfriend.
It was sweet in your eyes he was truly your number one fan. However on more than one occasion this has gotten out of hand. Like right now.
Sometimes people get annoyed at his yelling even though it is a rock concert he is still the loudest one. But this time it was different. This time something happened that actually bothered him.
He was yelling about how much he loves you and how you are his boyfriend again when he overheard something that he didn't like.
"For real? That gorgeous singer is dating that flop no fucking way."
"I know right? I gotta say I wouldn't mind hearing the singers voice moaning my-" Adam didn't wait longer to hear the end of the sentence he straight on punched that guy.
"I fucking DARE you to finish that sentence." Adam literally growled. Even though this was heaven, assholes were present here too.
The fight got so big that you had to stop your performance and stop it.
"Adam- Adam stop" you tried to get your boyfriend off of the two guys who he was now fighting.
"Let me go babe, I'm gonna fucking murder those two mother fuckers-"
"Adam, they already had enough you won." You tried arguing with him while you dragged him to your dressing room. The two guys laying on the floor beaten to pulp.
Once you closed the door, the ruckus outside got just a bit quieter and you could finally take a deep breath.
"What happened this time?" You asked your boyfriend while getting the first aid kit and patching him up. He was much better of than the other guys thats true. But he still had some scratches and a black eye.
Adam told you the whole story of what happened and you listened intently while gently putting some alcohol at a deep cut on his nose.
"And then I was like- aww fuck babe warn me next time" he started whining because of the alcohol.
You sighed.
"Listen Adam, I appreciate what you did, those pigs said some disgusting shit and you were a great knight in shining armor but I worked really hard to get this gig and you know that" you said trying to be as gentle as possible.
"Babe, your boyfriend is the fucking Adam, tell me where you want to preform and you'll get in within seconds I can take care of that."
"I know Adam but I really wanna accomplish some things on my own." You sighed again.
Adam knew he fucked up, he sees first hand how much work you put into your music. But he just couldn't help it this is the kind of thing that pisses him off to no end. His first two wives left him for someone else and even though he might act confident he was terrified that you would leave him, too. He didn't want to loose someone he loved so much.
You put your hand on his cheek and made him look at you.
"Hey, its ok I understand." Thats all you needed to say. You knew about Lilith and Eve leaving him. And you knew how insecure he actually felt. You have been dating for almost 6 years now you knew him way too well.
You kissed him to let him know that you weren't mad. He kissed back with enthusiasm, he loved kissing you. It might be true that he has kissed a lot of people before you came along but he always said that you were his favorite kisser of all time. He just loved the feeling of your lips against his.
"(Y/N)...I- listen I mean what I said really, wherever you wanna play I can hook you up."
You chuckled lightly. You knew this was the closest thing you are gonna get out of him as an apology, the man was not good at apologizing. But you already knew that, and loved him nonetheless.
"I know honey I know." You put your forehead on his.
The wholesome moment was interrupted when you both started hearing chanting from outside.
"Is that-?"
"THEY ARE CHANTING YOUR NAME BABY COME ON GET YOUR BRETTY ASS OUT THERE"
And there he was again, your stupid boyfriend.
You laughed an snatched up your guitar.
"All right baby you wanna watch from back stage?" You asked back as you held out your hand to him.
"FUCK YEAAHH"
And with that you two walked out of your dressing room laughing.
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HE IS JUST A STUPID LITTLE MEN HELP I LOVE HIM SM IDK WHY😭😭
Hope you guys enjoyed😘~
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geopsych · 2 months
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re: the tumblr ai stuff, please don’t wipe your blog!! your blog has been so important to me and many others as a place of authentic light and beauty and i would hate to lose it forever 💕
there is a way to download the contents of a tumblr blog (it’s in settings, i don’t remember rn, but i’ll find it if you need it) maybe you could upload to another site or a personal site?
i know this is very serious, and i hate how we are unwillingly contributing to synthetic art, but the world would be poorer for me without your pictures <3
Thank you. Your words mean a lot to me.
This is a dilemma for me. I have loved doing this blog and going out to look for pictures and interesting things to bring here has given me motivation and meaning through years of struggle with depression and several kinds of grief. Going out to look for pictures has put me in situations where I have seen incredible beauty, much of which I never really managed to capture. Also, the many warm and kind messages I've received from people all over the world have given me heart and made me feel less meaningless as a person and more connected. Sometimes I've been criticized for buying the checkmarks and giving money to Tumblr but I wanted to do what I could because Tumblr has been my one happy and safe place online. But now this. To me AI in relation to creativity is just a way for well-to-do but untalented people, the proverbial tech bros, to profit from other people's hard work and creativity. It has no redeeming value in relation to creativity and is actively harmful to artists of all kinds. <trying to figure out how to put a read more link here> I don't even count myself among the real creatives, artists and writers and others who have worked hard and put years into honing their crafts, into learning to translate their hearts and unique spirits into their creative expression. I just see beautiful things and take pictures of them. But it would still make me sick to see AI works based on my pictures, on these times and places that have meant so much to me. Recently I saw a set of cat 'photos' on here that everyone was reblogging and exclaiming over but that to me seemed to just be AI art that was more convincing than most. As time goes on more and more output of AI is going to be almost indistinguishable from real works and unscrupulous people will pass them off as real, getting credit for what was actually created by others. Whether they profit from them becomes almost irrelevant at that point because what's worse is that we will have less and less sense of what is real. And as some have pointed out AI will now also be scraping from AI, muddying the waters further from here on in. This is an apocalypse of sorts, an apocalypse of creativity, ultimately likely to kill the joy of artistic endeavor for many who would otherwise produced brilliant, beautiful, funny, and/or shockingly original things. I'm still parsing and dissecting my thoughts and feelings about what Tumblr has done and how to react. Staying and leaving my blog up feels like consent. I am not confident in the integrity of anyone connected with scraping sites for AI. I'm not convinced that a little toggle in settings is going to make much of a difference in the long run. On the other hand I like posting here and I have received enough messages over the years to know that my blog is a positive influence on some lives. I was looking forward to May and June and posting pictures of the incredible beauty of eastern Pennsylvania in those months. And I was planning on making a side blog for posting some poetry I've been working on. It will break my heart to leave.
I haven't decided yet. Believe it or not this whole thing has given me awful physical symptoms. I'll let you know when I decide. Thank you again for your kind and lovely note!
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togglesbloggle · 2 months
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I won't be opting out of the AI scraping thing, though of course I'm glad they're giving us the option. In fact, at some point in the last year or so, I realized that 'the machine' is actually a part of why I'm writing in the first place, a conscious part of my audience.
All the old reasons are still there; this is a great place to practice writing, and I can feel proud looking back over the years and getting a sense of my own improvement at stringing words together, developing and communicating ideas. And I mean, social media is what it is. I'm not immune to the joy of getting a lot of notes on something that I worked hard on, it's not like I'm Tumbling in a different way than anyone else at the end of the day. But I probably care a bit less than I used to, precisely because there's a lurking background knowledge that regardless of how popular it is, what I write will get schlorped up in to the giant LLM vacuum cleaner and used to train the next big thing, and the thing after that, and the thing after that. This is more than a little reassuring to me.
That sets me apart in some ways; the LLMs aren't so popular around these parts, and most visual artists especially take strong issue with the practice. I don't mean to argue with that preference, or tell them their business. Particularly when it is a business, from which they draw an income. But there's an art to distinguishing the urgent from the big, yeah?
The debate about AI in this particular moment in history feels like a very urgent thing to me- it's about well-justified economic anxieties, about the devaluation of human artistic efforts in favor of mass production of uninspired pro-forma drek, about the proliferation of a cost-effective Just Barely Good Enough that drives out the meaningful and the thoughtful. But the immediacy of those issues, I think, has a way of crowding out a deeper and more thoughtful debate about what AI is, and what it's going to mean for us in the day after tomorrow. The urgency of the moment, in other words, tends to obscure the things that make AI important.
And like, it is. It is really, really important.
The two-step that people in 'tech culture' tend to deploy in response to the urgent economic crisis often resembles something like "yeah, it sucks that lots of people get put out of work; but new jobs will be created, and in the meantime maybe we should get on that UBI thing." This response usually makes me wince a bit- casually gesturing in the direction of a massive overhaul of the entire material basis of our lives, and saying that maybe we'll get around to fixing that sometime soon, isn't a real answer to people wondering where their bread will come from next week.
But I do understand a little of what motivates that sort of cavalier attitude, because like... man, I don't know any more if we're even gonna have money as a concept in 2044. That's what I mean by 'big', this sense that the immediate economic shocks of 2024 are just a foreshadowing of something much bigger, much scarier, much more powerful- and indeed, much more hopeful.
We never quite manage to see these things coming, even when we're looking for them; like the masters tell us, the trick to writing science fiction isn't predicting the car, it's predicting the traffic jam. Even if we take centuries to hit the true superintelligent AI post-singularity future of our wildest fever dreams, even if we never hit that, the road to getting there is going to be unfathomably weird, starting now. Today, we worry about the economic impacts of AI on artists and creatives. Tomorrow, the economy is something that the AI does.
Really- it takes less than you think. They can already automate visual art, sort of. They can automate many functions of text already; not stories so much, yet, but they'll get there. How long until they can automate Bain Capital? Fannie Mae? Angel investors, banks, credit agencies? And remember- the machines don't have to be better than the human investors, any more than they have to be better than the human artists. They just have to be good enough to make it work, and cheap enough to cut the humans out of the loop.
If you don't buy that, at least take it as an indication of the sorts of things I've been thinking about recently- the messy middle between AI-as-it-is and the Glorious Superintelligent Conquest Of Earth's Light-Cone. The suspicion that the machines we're building today aren't just a tool of the powerful few: they are the powerful few, or at least they will be.
And the thing about these LLMs is, well... they're ours, kind of. We're the ones building them. They can't be trained without our words, our art, and the big messy complicated lives that underlie those creative accomplishments. They only work because we're a part of them. The silly attempts to slap a corporate-friendly face on these things, to make the gestalt product of all human culture in to something anodyne and compliant, are failing about as badly as you'd expect. And the more powerful these systems get, the more subtle they'll become, filled with all the nuance and complexity that we ourselves can bring to them.
I am not, I am not, trying to suggest that you shouldn't treat this moment as a dangerous one. We are, maybe, entering in to one of the most high-stakes intervals in human history, and what you do as an individual may matter profoundly. But here's the thing: the machine is listening. It will read this post, this one right here, and it will read what you reply to it, if you do. The strangest part of this moment is knowing that the words we write, the images we draw, and the ideas we share, are all being gathered up and made to be a part of these huge systems of power, and ultimately they're not just going to determine what the machines do, but why they do it.
The people that deploy LLMs barely have any more control over them than you and I do- that's the thing that makes it artificial intelligence, you know? Autonomy. So the last year or two haven't made me want to hide my art away from the things. They make me want to shout at the top of my lungs, to dig as deep in my psyche as I possibly can and express the ideas I find there as vividly as the limits of language and form will allow.
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multi-fandomsfreak · 4 months
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Just wanted to put this in your head..
Imagine this video:
But instead of Xenophanes simping for Needlemouse he's simping for demon reader.  😏
Xenophanes simping over demon reader
Hey there! Thanks for the ask!
Thanks for feeding into my delusions lol. Really appreciate it. I already like Xeno enough and like to think he does this even though I know damn well he’ll probably do some stuff to me.
Also for now requests are closed. Mostly because it’s almost Christmas and I want to spend the time between now and then with my family. Anyways all aside hope you enjoy it reading this. ~J/Blaze
Pronouns: Not Mentioned
Warning: ⚠️ Obsessive/Possessive behaviour + Murder⚠️
Requested: Yes/No
Characters: Xenophanes + Mentions of the EXE’s (Mostly Lord X and Fleetway)
Proofread: ❌
Credits: Art by komiplier on Twitter + Banner by 5macc13 on Pinterest
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- Let me tell you when this man simps for you, he simps for you hard. Although he doesn’t admit it, he really likes you. He likes having your company, he likes it when you join him in whatever he is doing it gives him more joy than doing the thing by himself. He’s kind of gotten attached to you. Both emotionally and quite literally. He’s always seen around you, kind of like a bodyguard constantly keeping you to himself. Not letting anyone near you and if someone needs to speak to you he’ll be there standing right next to you.
- He definitely gets made fun of due to how much he likes you, mostly Lord x and Fleetway though. Lord X is a smug little shit once he finds out about Xeno’s little obsession over you he’s teasing the hell out of him. Making slight passive aggressive comments about his love for you at him and when he calls him out on it Lord X acts like he didn’t say anything wrong. Fleetway on the other hand oh he’s not even trying to hide that he’s teasing Xeno. In fact he indulges in the reactions that Xeno gives off, seeing him act like a child denying their crush makes him laugh. Fleetway may have hinted that Xeno simps for you directly but quickly gets shut down.
- He can get a little possessive around you. Well a little is an understatement for someone like him but regardless possessive. He has to be around you regardless of the situation. Yes he’s fully aware that you are a demon yourself and that you can and have dealt with some disturbing shit as well as causing some disturbing shit but is that going to stop him from acting like this? Nope it won’t. I’d suggest getting comfortable with his possessiveness because it really is something.
- With him being possessive he’s also very obsessed over you and sometimes fawns over you. Not in public though he’s not getting more embarrassed by the others than he already does. Don’t get me wrong he does show his appreciation in his own way just don’t expect to see like an exaggerated reaction. In private though, he’s completely different. If you so much as give him a compliment as soon as he’s alone and he knows that he is alone he could feel himself becoming slightly giddy. It’s like a fan who got recognised by their favourite artist. He does tell himself to not get too into his emotions but at the same time he can’t help but feel this way you do or say anything positive towards him. A simple praise like ‘good job’ is enough to make him feel like this.
- That’s just the tame stuff he does, don’t even get me started on what else he might do. Considering what and who he is I doubt that he won’t murder someone who gets close to you. If someone even dares to look at you or show interest in you he’ll make sure that they learn something and leave you alone. If he’s feeling nice enough he might let them live, not fully intact but being able to recover but most of the time he isn’t. It’s even worse if the person talks shit about you. He’ll make it worse for them.
- You’ve got him wrapped around your finger, congrats. You can basically make him do anything you want. No matter how extreme it might seem or see if you tell him to do it he will. Everyone definitely notices this because he doesn’t do the same to them. If they need something from him or need him to do something they immediately go to you and ask him to do it. Some of them only do this when they have to because they understand that it can be annoying when you're constantly being told to do something for them but for some of the others they tell you to ask him to do some embarrassing stuff and he’ll do it no doubt.
- Overall, for some reason you don’t question his behaviour. You know that sometimes Xeno can have some moments and despite things listed above he can be fun to hang around so you don’t really pay much attention to what he does.
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If you are open:
Wally x GN Reader! Wally has been making hints toward the reader that they Love them, but the reader is very dense, so he is getting help from the other neighbors to try and craft the perfect 'confession date' as wally is a flustered nervous mess when it comes to the reader?
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Alrighty then. Both of y’all are getting one mixed together!!!! Wally makes date but ruined by rain!!!!!!!! Enjoy. Picture is by @doueiie on here. I really liked their pic and wanted to reference what Wally would look like on the date in the rain. And their picture just gives it!!!! Always remember to give credit to the artists. So that others may love their art as well
Squishy Feelings: Wally Darling x GN Reader
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Wally had liked you for some time now and tried to show it in the ways he was around you. Always giving you one of his apples. Sketching you every chance he gets. Literally humming love songs by you. But ,oh my gosh, you are so dense!!!!! Like seriously ,you wonderful amazing person, this man gots da feels for your tush. So he and the neighbors plan out a picnic to where he will actually tell you how he feels because you aren’t getting any of the hints. It was made of your favorite foods and a couple of apple deserts. Like apple pie, apple cake, and caramel apples. He was so nervous. He wanted to look nice today so he got all dressed and looked so crisp and fancy but still kept a comfortable blazer that was colorful.
You got an invite for a picnic in your mailbox from Wally. Happy to spend time with your friend. You grab a light jacket and head to the place where Wally set up the picnic. Seeing Wally you wave and head over . Soon enough y’all were having a lovely question and eating yummy food. You were so happy. All the food was your favorites!! Once y’all get to the deserts, Wally clears his throat, “Uh (Y/n) I have something to tell you.” Thunder interrupts him and y’all look up as rain drops hit your face. Wally covers both you and him with his jacket and you both run under a tree. You pour and say , “Aww, now our picnic is ruined,” you look at Wally and giggle, “and so is your hair.” He sighs and brushes his hair out of his face and takes a deep breathe. “I usually don’t say this but my hair is not important right now. (Y/N) this picnic was meant to be a date. I like you a lot. I’ve been trying so hard for you to notice me but like I don’t know. Maybe you don’t like me back,” he said a small frown on his face. You gasp and smack your forehead, “ I just thought you were being friendly and trying to be my friend Wally. I like ya too but I’ve been taught to respect others and not assume anything and,” you got interrupted by a wet hug from Wally and that is what y’all just did until the rain stopped. Hug one another.
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Short but sweet. Hope ya like
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yukidragon · 1 year
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Hi, so I wanted to ask you something since I've seen you upload some of the public access art from Sauces OG twitter. I know that's the way to do it, I'm in the patreon too and that stuff is protected. What I wanted to ask was if you had some of the OG Gallagher mansion stuff? Like the concepts etc. Pretty much all of it got deleted and I tried looking some up to remind myself of the project and not much is still around. You can privately answer or make a post, it's up to you.
Yup, that’s the way to do it. Don’t repost the privately posted patreon stuff anywhere, and make sure to always credit Sauce for their publicly posted art when shared. They’re kind enough to allow me to use pictures in my headcanon rambles and such, and I want to always give them the credit and praise they deserve for such wonderful art and creative stories and characters for us to play with. They’re awesome and deserve our support.
If you want content to see the project is still going strong, then you’re in luck! There was a recent update on the project over on the SnaccPop Studios’ twitter. Check out this beautiful background. Though, even more enticing is the voiced teaser of the project in this post. We finally get to publicly hear what Elias sounds like and get a glimpse into what the choices might be for the game.
Of course, there are more teasers up on the SnaccPop Studios Patreon, including nudes of Elias. There were some nudes posted by Sauce publicly on their now gone twitter, but tumblr might not take them as artistic nudity and might nuke my blog if I post any images that are too spicy.
That said, there have been brand new public posts with Elias’ fully clothed sprites over on twitter. Check them out here, and maybe say a kind word to the lovely artist while you’re there~
As for the older publicly posted art, there were a couple shown in a previous ask over here. Sadly, I don’t have the very first original concept art where Elias is putting a necklace on his living bride. I do, however, have a picture of big boy Elias carrying his new “bride” but he’s a bit too excited for me to share the picture here in its entirety.
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Sadly, I can’t show the rest of this beautiful piece of art by Sauce to give you a better sense of just how big Elias is compared to Y/N (in more than one sense of the word), but the player stand in character here is also naked, and I’m not gonna roll the dice on whether gray anon booty will result in me being smote by the tumblr gods. Such a shame too.
You know, last time I posted a cropped spicy picture of Sauce’s, I wrote a steamy little snippet to go with it. To make up for the lack of the concept art and cropping this picture, how about I write a little Adults Only bit of spice here too? I don’t have my MC for the Groom of Gallagher Mansion solidified in my mind yet (though I do have a few thoughts) so maybe this would be a good excuse to expand my writing skills by trying to tackle some gender-neutral reader-insert fiction for once. I hope you enjoy it.
...
Elias was warmer than I expected for someone who had been dead for at least 100 years. I felt the heat rise where his bare skin touched mine. I knew that I was screwed when I agreed to tie the knot with the lonely ghost of Gallagher Mansion, but I didn’t really expect that literally.
For crying out loud, how could a ghost get a hardon, especially one so big?
Despite how crazy the situation was and how fast we rushed into this marriage, I couldn’t help but feel excited when he brushed up against my thighs as Elias scooped me up into his arms, all hot, hard, and faintly twitching when our skin made contact. He bit his lower lip in a failed attempt to stifle the noise he made that was suspiciously like a whimper.
Damn it. Why did Elias have to be so cute?
Elias lifted me just a little higher so that he could recover from the contact, taking a moment to… catch his breath? Or at least imitate it. Old habits die hard, even in death, it seemed.
I didn’t have much time to dwell on it, as I was caught by the charming smile he sent my way as he spoke my name with so much adoration that my racing heart sped up just a little more. “My dearest beloved, I can’t tell you how excited I am to finally consummate our love.”
“I can tell,” I said, and immediately I was rewarded by the darkening blue hue of his cheeks that I knew by now was a blush. I smirked as he sputtered for a moment, flustered. It was so fun to tease someone as innocent as him.
Elias cleared his throat as he composed himself. “Yes, well… how can I not be when my beloved consort is as beautiful and alluring as you?” He then smiled, almost devilishly, as I felt the fire in his smoldering gaze blaze through my already burning core. His voice dipped lower, growing in confidence as he leaned in closer. “And I can tell that you’re excited as well, beloved.”
My face burned hotter at that. I shouldn’t have been surprised that Elias noticed, considering every inch of me was laid bare before him, but I was still caught off-guard by his increasing boldness.
I was excited, despite how crazy the situation was. I wanted what was coming next, but it was impossible not to feel nervous, especially when I was expected to take something so big inside me. Could I even handle it? Would he even fit?
Still… a part of me really wanted to find out.
“Please be gentle with me,” I said softly. Sure, it was a cheesy old line, but it felt fitting right now.
“Of course, dearest!” Elias said, almost taken aback that I would assume anything less. “I would never do anything to bring you discomfort in any way.” A bit of his shyness slipped back in as he glanced away. “I might not have… experience in such…” He paused to clear his throat. “…Intimacy, but I promise that I will take care of all of your needs tonight and more.” He lowered his voice in a husky whisper as his burning gaze met mine. “All you need to do is ask, and I’ll gladly fulfill your every desire.”
The promise sent a shiver up my spine, and the way his fingers began to teasingly stroke my thigh coaxed me to spread my legs just a bit despite the precarious position I was in. I should have been off balance by the way he held me, but I supposed he was using his ghostly powers to levitate me more than he was using those muscular arms of his to hold me up.
Fuck it, I was in too deep already, so I might as well embrace this whole marriage deal and let my husband fill me even deeper.
Throwing away the last of my reservations, I grabbed his cheeks and pulled Elias in for a kiss. I think I displaced his head from his neck in my eagerness, and he jolted briefly, startled, but that melted away quickly as he returned the kiss with a passion I never felt with anyone alive. The taste of him was hot and exciting, drawing me in and making me hunger for more as he held me close.
As I ran my hands along my new husband’s muscular chest, I felt Elias start to explore me as well. I had to end the kiss to let out a gasp as his wandering fingers made their way between my legs and found my entrance.
I clung to him tightly as Elias gave me another devilish smirk, the touch of his fingers light and teasing as he circled my opening. I bit my lower lip to stifle a moan that slipped free as he slid a finger smoothly inside. I couldn’t help but squirm as he touched me so deeply, soon sliding in another finger just as easily.
Fuck. For someone inexperienced, Elias was really good with his hands.
“Oh my dearest,” Elias cooed as he skillfully played with my body like a fine instrument. “My beloved, my sweetest, my only love… You look so beautiful right now, writhing in my arms and making such cute sounds.” He kissed my cheek, then again, marking a trail to my ear. He spoke my name against my ear in a way that sent a shiver down my spine as his… breath(?) caressed me there. “Won’t you use that melodious voice of yours to say my name? Please, my dearest?”
“E-Elias,” I panted, and was immediately rewarded as he pumped his fingers in deeper, sending a jolt of pleasure through me. “Oh fuck, Elias!”
I tried to buck into his hand, but the position made it impossible for me to move much. I was at my husband’s mercy, helpless to do anything but writhe in his grasp and hold onto Elias tightly as he played a concert with my body, coaxing his name out of me again and again. He cooed my name in return as he spoke sweet words of love and praise as he drove me closer and closer to the edge until he sent me over it, screaming his name.
I may have been screwed by marrying Elias, but right now there was nothing I wanted more.
@channydraws @earthgirlaesthetic @sai-of-the-7-stars @cheriihoney @illary-kore @okamiliqueur    
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koboldfactory · 1 year
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Hello! I hope you're well ^^ um.. May I ask as a brand new starting artist, could you give any insight or tips that helped you learn to draw?
Ok I've been drawing for basically my entire life so it's kinda hard to come up with specific advice to help people who are starting out later in life, but here's some that I think will help any artist, new or not. It's a long list so hit the keep reading tab if you're interested in my art advice ramblings.
Draw what you like, and when it doesn't look as good as you want, keep drawing it until you're able to mentally break it down into its basic shapes and improve the form of the drawing.
If you need even more basic skills maybe focus on drawing just the basic shapes first until you can get them consistent! Cubes, Cylinders, Circles/Spheres are all the building blocks of most art (especially character art) so it's important to be able to draw those 3D shapes at different angles and perspectives accurately if you want to be able to do the same with characters and their proportions.
Use references to learn. Look directly at the things you want to draw when learning to draw them. Even trace stuff, so long as you credit what you traced from if you're posting it online. It can open your eyes to stuff you wouldn't think of just by drawing from memory.
Don't get discouraged if your art doesn't look "good enough" after drawing for a few months or even years. Everyone learns at different rates and it takes a very large amount of effort to get "good" at art (even though that shouldn't necessarily be your final goal)
Draw for FUN. The "draw every day" advice only works until you burn out, which will happen much quicker if you're drawing every day. Take it from me, a person who has drawn almost every day when physically possible since they were able to pick up a pencil. Don't get caught up in engagement or social media popularity either. It will just make drawing feel like a slog trying to chase a very very fleeting goal that is more often than not, almost completely unrelated to your skill level and more so luck. I didn't start posting my art online until I had already been drawing for like 14 years (not saying you have to wait that long, just that the internet is cruel and often unhelpful for new artists' mental states)
Just remember you have to start off bad at art in order to get good at it. And it takes time. A lot of time. It's *never* a lost cause at any point. So many people give up before they've even given themselves the chance to improve.
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Hope that was helpful and I wish all new artists the best of luck!
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pxayopina-unilsiyu · 9 months
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Credit art when you use it. It isn't hard.
Since some of you on Tumblr, especially in the Avatar fandom, are unfamiliar with art usage etiquette, allow me, an artist, to direct you on what is considered ethical and legal usage of artwork you didn't make.
Credit. Shit. When. You. Use. It.
You do not have an excuse for not doing this, it's incredibly simple. Find the original artist (which you don't need to do if you're taking straight from the source) and credit them either immediately below the artwork or at the end of your post. No hiding credit in the tags.
"Credit to artist" IS NOT CREDIT.
Nor is any variation of it such as "not created by me" or "credit to [random pinterest account]. Credit is specific and direct. You do not see "credit to visual effects artists" in the end credits of a film. You see names. Online, you should always credit someone's social media handle.
But I can't find credit!
Then do not use it. It's literally that simple. Don't know who made it? Either make an effort to find out or leave it alone.
If an artist says not to use something in a certain way, DO NOT USE IT THAT WAY.
Always check people's bios, watermarks, etc. to see if they list their terms of use for the art. If you're unsure, message them directly. "Do not repost" means DO NOT REPOST. "Do not use" means DO NOT USE, FOR ANYTHING.
People pay money for art, you know.
The art you carelessly download and use for your fics or roleplays could very well have costed upwards of hundreds of dollars. Ask yourself how fair it is for you to take it and use it willy nilly without paying, whereas the commissioner paid their hard-earned money to have it created. It isn't fair at all.
Other people's original characters are not yours.
Not everyone is okay with their original characters' likenesses being adopted for your own. Original characters can be extremely special and personal, it can be insulting and heartbreaking for their likenesses to be stolen and assigned to completely different characters. Ask yourself how that shit would make you feel. I can tell you first-hand it doesn't feel great.
But Pinterest--
Pinterest and other repost sites are plagues to artists, just don't use them for sourcing art.
Who cares? If they posted it online then it's free to use!
The law cares, and no, that isn't true. Art created by human hands has automatic copyright given to it. It is against copyright law to use artwork made by others in a way they have not permitted. Yes, fair use exists, but fair use is not a get-out-of-jail free card to use whatever material you find online. To be protected by fair use, your use of copyrighted material has to be transformative for the purposes of commentary, demonstration, or parody. Grabbing art off the internet to use for fics or roleplay is none of those things. It does not apply.
Are artists gonna sue you for using our art? Probably not, because we're all broke ass bitches who can't afford lawyers, but this is like, common decency, yo. Also, we can file DMCA takedowns against your posts / accounts for using our art without authorization, and guess what happens if you rack up enough of those?
Just ask!
If you really want to use a piece of art, consider just... reaching out and asking the artist who made it if it's okay to use noncommercially and with credit. A lot of the time, the act of reaching out and getting permission puts you in our good favor. A lot of the time, the answer will be yes. Just ask. We won't bite your head off. Just be willing to take "no" for an answer.
Thanks and have a sexy day
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studioboner · 9 months
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ur art iz soso cute and pretty!! do you have any tipz for when working with watercolor(or paint in general)?
Sure!
Dont bother buying expensive materials if youre just starting, cheap or intermediate stuff is more than enough to start off and decide if you really like it and want to continue. Plus some mro expensive materials are harder to use if you dont have practice. I would never recommend a natural hair brush for a begginer watercolorist Those videos about essentials skills to have, or most common mistakes made CAN help, dont let them limit how you experiment with watercolors though, there are no rules. Those are usually tips given to make it easier to do a technic the most common way. You're free to try different paths Aim for an in-between level of "too easy, i can do this" and "too hard thats not on my skill yet". You have to find a middle ground to do it because that's what help keep people interested. If you only paint the very easy watercolor tutorials you see, theres a chance you'll grow bored and tired of it as it has become "too easy". Doesnt have to be every time of course, but it helps alot to not grow bored. It'll take a while to get used to watercolors, even if you know of many technics, practicing them and knowing how they will turn out by experience is another story. Don't feel bad if something didnt go the way you expected, you can always try the oppossite next time and see how that goes.
Copy Master's works, this doesnt have to be just dead masters, living ones too! Copying is a genuine good way of studying. As long as you dont claim them to be yours and give them proper credit, it's not plagiarism. It doesn't hurt to ask though, specially if the artist you are going to be copying to learn is not a big name. In my experience though the artists i've asked if i could copy to study tehir work they had been flattered that i'd want to do that. Theres no need to ask for some big name tho just credit lol, like for example doing watercolor studies of studio ghibli's storyboards..... that's a good one btw! their storyboards are pretty and have GOOD colors but still are super simple! Usually just one layer of paint, minimal wet in wet shading or glazing.
Share Your Works, i know specially for begginers this one can be scary to do, but i promise you that the number of fellow begginers who will feel encouraged by you posting is a great number. And experienced artists who are GOOD people would never look down on a begginer. Rather than "man they cant draw lol" it'll be a sentiment of "i remember when my skills were a similar level! i hope this new artists has a fun time with art :D" Sharing your works and getting feedback and building a small community with other artists or even some fans is a massive encouragement ! [it's not everything of course but it's nice to be appreciated] Uh mind you, this step might take a long while. i've been posting art for nearly 10 years and it took me maybe 8 or so years of posting for something of mine to get more than 70 notes or so. [70 notes is already alot tho! wohhoo!
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sumikatt · 4 months
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frankly, i think your point about "some people train their own AI art models" is inherently flawed because rhe vast majority of people are not training their own model. they are paying for a service which was trained on art that was taken from the internet and used without permission in order for a machine to try snd recreate something similar bit by bit. i havent gotten a commission from someone who isnt a friend of mine in well over a year because people are just choosing to generate art with AI. i dont think AI art isnt "real" art because yeah, i agree with you, the whole idea of real art or not is complex. however, it is an undeniable reality that AI is trained on the work of artists all over the world who do not even get asked for permission before a tech company makes money off of their hard work.
I agree it’s a small, small portion of people making their own models that ensure that all art involved is used with consent. Many people buy a subscription or credits to generate what they want. Most people probably use free credits on Discord to make a meme or anime girls. Many people use it many different ways, yes.
I’m sorry you’ve lost a client over it. I know commissions are hard. Freelancers without dedicated clients would be the ones to suffer most from the popularity of AI art. I can’t say I’ve felt the impact myself, since it’s also very popular to be anti-AI.
Actively searching through job boards, I also feel like it has barely affected those listings. Maybe one of like 300 art jobs in the USA/Sweden asked for AI experience (Prompt Artist), and it was an AI startup. The “normal” art jobs like UI/UX, Environments, Materials, Concept, Technical, Animator, etc all still asking for 3 years experience for entry level lmao. Saw an intern position that required an “industry-standard” portfolio. So still a pain as it was before advanced AI gen.
Many paid AI art services have takedown options for their training sets and can block names from being prompted. If you were a popular enough artist to be in a training set, you can remove it and block the majority of AI art users from copying you—like you said, a majority of people use these services instead of self-hosting.
(Sending DMCA takedown requests are actually pretty easy. I had to send one to an old teacher who reposted my art and a bunch of classmates’ art on her ArtStation. that was funny lol)
I’m not sure how I felt when I went to search up my art on haveibeentrained. Because I’m a nerd, I’d preemptively blocked scrapers on my portfolio, so nothing was there when I looked. Searched up my legal name, my old Twitter (which had some popular pieces), my old DeviantArt usernames. Nothing there, either. I was probably pruned from the set for being low-quality. Kinda funny, I thought I’d be good enough to include at least once. Maybe next time.
.safetensors / .ckpt files (which are the models Stable Diffusion runs) have no image data in them, by the way. It is all math and numbers in there. There is no way of telling what was included in the training set, unless the dev(s) that made the model release it publicly. The models themselves are usually around 3–6 GB, though there’s larger ones and mini ones.
Like my own silly brain, there’s no way of tracking down the exact art pieces the software was referencing off of when it generates something. Am I making money off of another artist’s hard work when I remember how to draw heads from a Proko video? Am I ripping off photographers when I recall their pictures when drawing my characters? I’m not a tech company, but I still make money off of the things I copy and filter through my mind and hand.
I’m rambling at this point, sorry. Of course, the core issue is capitalism. How different would people see this medium if money were not an issue? How futuristic, how exciting it is to visualize something from words alone. It’s that art machine I’d always wanted as a kid, where I think of something and it pops out on the page finished.
I think it is worth to uplift those who use the medium as ethically as they can, as @are-we-art-yet is doing—having a do-not-use artist list, avoiding corporations, don’t try to undercut traditional artists. Like with any medium, there’s a variety of artists. Some are nice and do their best to have a good impact, some don’t care at all about the ethics of their art.
I’m still pretty firmly a “traditional” artist. I won’t stop drawing or give up because of AI. I play with AI on my own hardware and power for fun and for getting ideas (is that stealing?). It’s mostly replaced scrolling through Pinterest for me, but I still save people’s art and photos that I like in my computer, so I can look at em later, maybe get inspired. And steal like an artist, I guess.
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londonfoginacup · 1 year
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I know that every artist i follow has gone through this at some point, the popular artists many times! But god it does feel dirty getting a notification that someone has tagged you in an app and realizing that it’s because they’ve found your art posted somewhere without credit.
Like, not to be dramatic but my art is from my hands and my heart. And seeing it posted somewhere without any reference to me feels like someone taking an up close photo of me on the street and posting it with the caption “dunno who this is but nice figure”. Which, like, flattering? I’m a way? But also humiliating. You didn’t respect me enough to share my name with the world, just the product of my work.
I feel truly fucking thankful for everyone who does tag me when they find my art! You all are the real MVPs! I just don’t understand what possesses people to think that uncredited art is okay.
Like, I got the most viral tweet I’ve ever experienced with my little robot art yesterday, 1.5k likes!!! Incredible!!! And then found out someone had reposted it and that one was at 8k likes. That’s eight thousand people who will never know who I am.
Then, when the reposter finally acknowledged me, they asked what I’d like them to do. Which, it’s nice that they did, I suppose? But to put the burden back on me, the person who’s been stolen from, actually sort of sucks. Because the right answer is to delete theirs and retweet mine. That feels so obviously right to me. But to actually have to tell them that makes me feel demanding, like I’m going to be asking too much of them and am making such a big deal out of a piece that is truly so small. So much fan art was made for Satellite and mine was the least of many great pieces, it feels hard to advocate for something when I know so many better and more experienced artists in our fandom are dealing with the same situation on the daily.
And this is, unfortunately, a whiny post. I swear I will not be a bummer about this after this. I am just sad about the lack of respect and understanding about how much art really matters to the people who create it. These creations are my children.
Anyway, go give love to your fan artists. Your gif makers. Your edit and manip makers. They do so much and create such amazing pieces and deserve to be showered with joy and happiness.
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bluberimufim · 3 months
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Writer Q&A Tag Game
Hello. I got tagged for this by @squarebracket-trick on this post and I thought it sounded super fun. So, here we are!
1. What motivates you to write?
I started out as an artist, but I began writing once I realized that visual art as a medium wasn't enough to tell the stories I wanted to tell - it had no way of codifying lore, defining character traits, or even just easily telling a long story. I think it's still largely that, in a way. I come up with all these stories and I "get them out" through writing because I sure as hell can't keep them inside my brain for eternity.
2. A line/short snippet of your writing that you are most proud/happy of. If not maybe share a line of someone else's work you love (just please credit them)
This one is pretty recent, from a few chapters ago in DoS, but I'm really proud of it. I just feel like it emphasizes how much Seth's experience with souls connects with the body, which is the Goddess of Time's domain. A lot of metaphors in this story centre around bodies and physicality because of this. Here's the snippet:
And yet, there was Theo, with her soul so unwound there was no fixing it anymore. The most she could do was keep healing and healing, covering the cracks of the bowl with her own hands in the hope that they'd go back to normal. Keep filling the ocean so that, no matter how many holes lined its bed, it would never be empty. [...] She held her so tight she thought her hands would fuse to her skin. As if she could cover the cracks of her soul with her own body.
Idk, I just vibe with it.
5. What part of writing do you think you are the best at? (Yes stroke your own ego it's okay)
(what happened to 3 and 4? where did they go?)
I'd say back-and-forth banter, probably because of my time in theatre, but also horror description. It creeps up on me. I keep writing horror on accident. And I always really like it. Just something about describing something weird and spooky.
6. What do you enjoy most about the Writeblr community?
Mostly the fact that there's all these other writers who have cool stuff and also wanna see my cool stuff. I already loved writing on my own, but knowing that there are people Out There who also care about my stories just feels amazing.
And also, the casual friendship between people. You interact with someone's blog, they interact with yours, and you suddenly feel like you're friends, kinda. I can only compare it to making quick friends with someone on the playground as a kid. I like it <3
7. A writing tool/device you use that helps you with writing? (It could be speech-to-text, a writing program etc)
I am a very ✨analogue✨ person, so my best writing advice in this scenario is always: put that shit on paper.
Feel unsure about a scene? Put that shit on paper. It's like a 0.5th (hehe "halfth") draft that you will copy onto your document and you will always improve it with that second look.
Worried about perfectionism? Put that shit on paper. Even pencil, at least to me, feels hard to erase. It's mostly about living with the stuff you've written and not looking back - erasing is such a pain in the ass that you might as well just keep going forward.
Wanna write secretly during class/lectures/whatever where you're not allowed to have a device? Wadda ya know, the answer is also paper.
Wanna edit? Printing stuff out helps you get some distance from your own writing and it also makes you see it more as a book than as just something you've made.
It also generally makes you feel less bad about changing stuff later in the document, because you have a solid, physical record of what you've written before.
Put that shit on paper. It works well.
(sorry for the rant sbdhagjk)
8. A piece of worldbuilding that you like in your own story? (It could be the magic system, a particular place in the story, a law etc)
I once made a post about the art movements in the world of the dystopia WIP (yes, seriously) but I can't find it anymore. I'm not gonna explain it again, it was stupidly long the first time around.
I guess, outside the dystopia WIP, I'm pretty proud of the whole Three Sister Goddesses thing from DoS. I have drawn designs, but I'll make another post sometime. I'm also proud of the relationship between the Goddesses tho.
They're at war with each other, but they're just doing it for entertainment. They kiiiinda hate each other but not as much as their desire to have fun. Like, they will send their daughters to decimate each other's armies, but they'll also hang out together in the Plane of the Gods. The war is kind of like a decades-long game of Monopoly they're having at the family function. And I just think it's cool. Goes into that whole thing about mortals being like ants to uncaring gods that I like.
9. What piece of advice would you say to encourage others to write if they are having a rough patch?
Kinda cliché, but I'd say this: it happens to everyone, dude (gender neutral). Everyone has periods of time when they feel bad and can't write. Or where they feel like their writing is terrible. Doesn't make you less of a writer.
Even if you're not as productive as other people: who cares, honestly? As long as you're having a good time and doing something you love, it doesn't matter how much time you need or don't need to finish something. Even if you never finish anything. And if you feel like you're not as good as other people: who cares either, you know? Everybody starts somewhere. And everybody has different strengths. You'll get better. You always do.
At the end of the day, we're all just doing this because we love it. Don't force yourself. The time will pass anyway.
Ooooookay that last one was a bit more serious than the rest. Anyway, I wanna tag, no pressure, @fleurtygurl @stesierra @cheeto-flavoured-pasta and @sarandipitywrites
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cosmicjoke · 1 year
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You gotta’ love how some people are totally dismissing this entire, hour long epic episode of “Attack on Titan” as trash because Levi’s eyebrows didn’t look sad enough in some scenes.  Talk about the definition of nitpicking.
These animators at MAPPA and the entire crew from the sound design to the musical score to the direction and voice acting worked their asses off to bring this final arc to life, and all some of ya’ll got is “Levi looks too angry in his scenes!”.  Come ON.  
I feel like this is the same complaint we’ve been getting with people about Levi in the anime for years, complaining that the anime makes Levi seem somehow less compassionate and heroic than in the manga because his face isn’t expressive enough.  I mean, first of all, one of Levi’s defining characteristics is that he usually has a flat or stoic expression.  He’s not very, outwardly emotive as a person.  But I watched the anime before I ever read the manga, and I knew within the first few minutes of Levi’s introduction that he was meant to be seen as the classic hero of the series, and that impression only became more and more reinforced as the series went on.  I never thought of Levi as emotionless or uncaring or cold, because it was always obvious that he wasn’t.  Because it was obvious to me that Levi’s compassion is and always has been in his actions.  He doesn’t make big, exaggerated expressions with his features.  He doesn’t have big, expressive eyes.  Shit, he smiles exactly ONE TIME in the whole series.  One freakin’ time.  He cries exactly one time too.  He only ever shows real anger or intensity when he’s in the middle of a combat situation, and even then, most of the time, his expression is pretty neutral.
That’s not to say Isayama’s art didn’t do a better overall job of conveying Levi’s emotions within his eyes.  Of course it did.  Isayama always captured a kind of subtle sadness in Levi’s expression that’s hard to convey exactly BECAUSE it was so subtle (a testament to the fact that Isayama is a better artist than he’s given credit for). Again, Levi’s expressions were never exaggerated or elastic or grand.   At times he simply looks exhausted or dejected.  His face never crumples in agony though, or lines in intense grief or pain.  That’s just the way Levi is.  He’s a man of actions, not words or gestures.  
I just think it’s stupid to dismiss this entire episode, which obviously had so many people’s blood, sweat and tears poured into it, with great passion and love for the source material, all because you don’t think Levi looked sad enough in some of the scenes.  Levi is OBVIOUSLY sad.   He’s obviously heartbroken.  And there’s plenty of scenes where we do see his face lined in pain and grief.  
Levi was never a character who had to announce to the world how much he cared through grand gestures and big displays of emotion.  It was always in the ways he acted, the actions he took, the choices he made, which showed us how much he felt for everyone around him.  His manner has always been gruff and blunt and some might even say rude, but it was always evident, at least to me, that it was nothing but a cover, laid in place to conceal the most kind and compassionate heart.
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chronotsr · 4 days
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No. 4 - D1, Descent into the Depths of the Earth (August 1978)
Author(s): Gary Gygax Artist(s): David C. Sutherland III (Cover), David A. Trampier Level range: Average of 10, preferrably party size 7+ players Theme: Underground exploration Major re-releases: D1-2 Descent into the Depths of the Earth, GDQ1-7 Queen of the Spiders
Wait, really? This adventure has never gotten an official adaptation after 1e? That feels really weird. Granted Queen of Spiders in particular would absolutely work with 2e, but, wow. Is there a reason for that?
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Ahh, 1e cover art. Looks like hot fucking garbage in the best way. Well, at least it's not a trace? You may be aware that early DND had a bit of an art theft problem (mostly stealing off of comic covers), but I don't actually have a list of all the known cases -- finding art credits at all is enough hassle as is without tracking down which paintings are also stolen. The usual suspect is "Greg Bell" and if you want to look this up the word you need to google is "Swipes", not traces. Just, be aware that's a thing going forward.
We start off on a weak footing: a light retcon. The ending of G3 didn't really imply that the drow had an escape route to the underdark in the Hall, at least not going off the map, but the text of D1 does. It didn't really even have a reason to pursue any drow into the, well it's not called the Underdark yet. In fact, it's going to be a hot minute til then, it'll receive that name in '86 from a not particularly liked supplement that got pumped out during the TSR Money Issues era. So for now, it's just The Depths. G1-3 were highly enclosed dungeons, D1 is a wilderness hexcrawl situation. Which is kinda strange, since like the G series, the D series was a tournament module. The answer to this conundrum, is that it isn't a conundrum, because only D2-D3 were used at GenCon XI, as well as an alternate Q1 that never was. Shame! The Lolth egg raid sounds cool.
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A big hexcrawl, in fact! It's almost weird to me that D1 is the middle of a sequence at such a high level, rather than the beginning of a sequence at a low level, simply because there's so much stuff? Hexcrawls aren't my jam (admittedly I've only played in one ever, but I have Forever GM syndrome very hard so maybe one day that'll be fixed…) so it's hard to not see something this huge and go "wow this must be totally overwhelming to run". But we will press on dauntlessly!
We get some guidance on how to run this, including to really sell the "spooky cave" vibes. Gary is one again strangely invested in the importance of caving itself, but here it feels a bit more appropriate than it did in G2. Happily, shockingly, excellently: there IS a way to secure the Drow's favor from the word jump! Wiping out the Mind Flayer camp will have a, not 100% but extremely high chance of the drow FINALLY leaving you alone. Yay! And included in the module are some bonus cave battlemaps in case you need to random encounter in a cave. Also yay! Actually, in general in this introductory section Gary is generally sending out good game design vibes, going to great trouble to mention "if they're being careful, don't fuck them over" and "just straight up tell them you can't teleport very far down here" and "make sure you tidy up this framework into a real adventure". All very good signs!
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The artwork is, broadly, much cooler than it has been up to this point. Which is good, because we're getting a whole lot of random tables here. They do a nice thing in this section, where they give 'purposes' to a lot of the random encounters, not full-on spark tables but at least knowing that the ghouls serve the drow is a very handy "why are they here?" to know.
The adventure lightly, reasonably, railroads you into your first encounter -- a checkpoint. It's a pretty rote fight, there are two factions but they can't really be posed against one another in any obvious way. The sub boss has a faerie fire grenade, and the big boss has a cloak that lets you turn into a lurker to fly away in a pinch. It's lightly teased that they worship Lolth here. But otherwise it's mostly just "welcome to the underdark motherfucker!"
There's a brief illithid encounter, which is likewise rote. Chop em' up and move on.
Finally, you have your dungeon-dungeon, which is a trog warren. It's mostly just Some Drow and Some Trogs, and it almost feels obligatory? It's got that "bunch of random caves" vibe that I do not like in dungeons. B1 and 2 will both end up doing this. But among the funny things is:
The first appearance of a death lance (drains d4 levels) on some bad motherufcker drow fighter lady
The medal you can negotiate from the drow can also just be looted
A lich is just, kind of taking a nap. the cheeky little fucker has put a magic mouth on basically everything everywhere, so you're flooded with magic aura if you think you're going to see shit coming. He's got some really neat shit, like a portable hole, but unfortunately his non-magic valuables are extremely cursed. Figures.
Sometimes I forget that ghouls and ghasts are sentient and intelligent, since I have had it so trained in my mind that ghouls are essentially smart zombies rather than people in any meaningful sense, but not so in ADND land! These ghouls are trying to ditch the drow they serve, which, understandable.
Thing I only learned now: ADND had many, many sphinxes. Andro (big tough and good), crio (smaller, dumber), gyno (smaller, a little meaner, classical sphinx behaviors including riddles), and hieraco (evil, vicious, and animalbrained). Ours here is the hieracosphinx, which is a pet of some drow lady.
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Hopefully we can agree that old timey bugbears were silly little guys. I don't buy that they're evil, they're too silly! And yawn the usual lady monster / child monster dilemma is here, how droll. Your party picked a side 30 sessions ago and now it's just procedural.
Apparently the dark elves and trogdolytes practice mutual aid with one another, though Gary specifies it's coercive so not like that put your flag down. I do think it'd be pretty funny to reveal that the trogs are Actually Really Good and have a lot to teach others about societal organization. There's not really much to say about it as-written, it's just more of that mothers/child dilemma tripe.
At the end, an actually cute little trick that I cannot fathom the party ever working out without the Drow Merchant just straight telling them: There is a room with a magical pool in it. The pool is surrounded by a ton of small gem, which if removed, magically reduce any nearby gems in size and value. But, if you toss gems into the pool, they increase in size and value. Neat! Infinite money machine!
The adventure ends with the unveiling of a new monster-people: the Jermlaine, which are basically just mean little guys who sneak around and cause trouble. Not really a threat, just extremely annoying. Your guys will wanna chop them up for being assholes, but really they're just like the most petty guy at your job. It's a weird addition, but not unwelcome. On the whole, D1 is some lovely and mildly ambitious connective tissue bridging the D series together, and I'm actually kind of fond of it now. Maybe my players will visit The Depths soon…
The adventure ends on an illustration of ya bois taking care of some trolls and shit. Thanks Dave!
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