Wee woo! I was wondering if you could write a male Yautja with a protective human mate? Even tho humans are WAY weaker.
What if another Yautja was insulting y/n, they doesn’t really care, then y/n’s mates comes out and is about to start shit. Then the rude Yautja insults their mate, before hubby can do anything to protect their honor little y/n knocks the guy tf out. What did we learn? Don’t talk shit about y/n’s mate.
Alien husband be like🧍♂️hold up-
Sorry if that was super specific, it’s been on my mind for a while and I haven’t been able to pleasingly write it for myself T^T
Your writing gives me something to look forward too at the end of a long, exhausting day. From the bottom of my heart, thank you. <3
A Yautja with a very protective human mate
Thank you very much for this request, @looseratinthegarage , I hope I met your expectations! 💖
Warnings: cussing, insults, fighting but nothing too serious
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You weren't quite popular amongst your alien shipmates. Not that it was much different from when you lived among humans, but at least they usually had the decency to wait until you left the room to talk shit about you.
Here, yautja would talk about you in plain sight, often looking at you while they did so. And instead of insults being muttered under their breath, they'd sometimes even stop you in your tracks just to let you know how little they valued your existence. They were obviously trying to get under your skin, which is why you tried so hard to just ignore their comments.
If you're being honest, you didn't mind them that much anyways. It was actually kinda refreshing- having people tell you what's on their mind for a change, even if it was negative.
But even then, you had to draw the line somewhere.
Today was Saturday, or at least you thought it was. Dates kind of blurred together since you moved onto the ship, but you still tried to retain some sort of routine. You had made some plans with your mate today since they didn't plan to go on a hunt, and you'd long been waiting to do something romantic for them. Well, as romantic as it can be when your life is reduced to a ship on which most areas you didn't have access to.
Looking yourself up and down in the mirror, you flashed a smile before taking your pocketknife and hiding it somewhere with easy access. It was almost time for your mate to arrive, and you'd intentionally picked an outfit you knew they enjoyed seeing you in.
With a kick in your step, you turned around to leave and made your way to your mate's quarters, only to meet them about halfway there.
"ah, there you are." you said and extended your hand, them gladly taking it, purring audibly as they did so "Are you excited?"
"You always excite me." they purred, grinning as they saw the blood rushing to your cheeks. You coughed, pulling on their arm as you led them to your first destination.
"yeah, yeah. You can tease me later. Right now we've got better things to do."
They tilted their head at you, having no problem keeping up even with you practically running to get where you wanted to go. "Which are?" they questioned.
"Patience." You scolded them, before you two turned a corner and got to one of the more populated areas of the ship. Something they didn't seem too fond of, gripping your hand so tight it almost hurt.
You stroked it reassuringly, looking up at them with a soft smile. They always worried so much about you, especially when around others of their kind. And though you understood why, you didn't want them to worry on your date. You wanted to make them feel good.
"hey, it's alright. C'mon, let me show you what I've planned for us." you took their hand up to your mouth to kiss it, before leading them into one of the rooms, which was filled with hand weapons and a large training area.
You had to hold in your laughter as you saw the question marks appear above their head.
"You...want me to train?" They asked confused. They were training a lot already, did you not think they were doing enough? Were you questioning their strength? They quickly shook that thought away. You had reassured them many times that you felt safe with them.
Then perhaps...
"I see." they hummed, taking one of larger blades and flexing their muscles. "You wish to watch me train, then?"
You laughed at this, gently taking the weapon and putting it back in it's place before taking a smaller one for yourself. You placed it's tip to your mate's chest threateningly, but they didn't as much as flinch as they looked down at you and raised an eyebrow. Cocky bastard... You lovingly cursed them in your mind
"Sort of. I want you to teach me." you say as you put the weapon back in it's place "You always worry so much, I thought this would help you sleep better knowing I could defend myself if the need arises." with delight, you watched as their eyes lit up at this and they moved towards you, obviously liking the idea.
Though before they could give you your first instructions, a loud growl came from behind, interrupting your little moment.
Annoyed, you spun around, meeting with the face of a yautia you've had the displeasure meeting before, but neglected to tell your mate in fear they might start a scene. Though obviously your efforts were now in vain.
"Why are you here?" They growled, not bothering to bend their back to look you in the eye, and instead puffing out their chest and, quite literally, looking down on you. "Do you enjoy taking up others space, ooman? Do you not realize that nobody wants you here?"
You rolled your eyes at their words. Can't you guys come up with something creative for once?
Getting ready to make a snarky remark, you got pushed back by your mate before you could open your mouth. Growling at them and flaring their mandibles, they stood before you, ready to defend your honor. You sighed, there it is. The Scene.
The other Yautja imitated your mate's stance, now directing their uncreative insults at them.
"And you, do you think there's any worth in that ooman you're mating? Or are you that incapable with your own species that you have to resort to... this" they spat, nodding in your direction.
Okay. Maybe a scene wouldn't be too bad right now.
Your mate was just about claw at them, when you stepped in. And before either of them could react you lurched forward to grab at their shoulder, using your leg to trip them and send them flying on their back. With a loud thud, they met with the ground, any attempts to get back at you dying as they saw the knife pressed firmly against their neck.
It was quiet for a few seconds as both of them stared at you in awe. Eventually, your mate stepped forward to place a warm hand on your shoulder. Their tone calm, but the look in their eyes and the loud purring showing just how ecstatic they were with what you just did.
"You're right little one, this does alleviate some of my worry."
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reflections on the art of the future
lately i have been thinking about the mainstream--insofar as my social circles are considered to be mainstream--attitude toward AI art.
and clearly, if the length of this post is anything to go by, i have a lot of thoughts on it.
let me begin by stressing that i agree that training a neural network on the work of artists without their express permission is, at the very least, not very nice. i think that artists should be supported however possible by those who appreciate their work, not have their corpus appropriated for sale as an NFT.
given that AI art is a bit of a hot-button subject right now, fixating on it as being the problem du jour is not a very nuanced position to have. a lot of what i see online is just the same echoed sentiments of 'it's bad because it's theft', or 'it's bad because AI art is soulless', or what-have-you. rarely, if ever, do i see much more than that.
i do agree that it is a problem, but what does one do about it? sure, we could rely on the state (through copyright law, for example), but is that really a sustainable solution in the long run?
let's think about it in more detail. indulge me if you will, by reflecting on the premise that "AI art is bad because it's used to profit off of the labor of someone else."
we can agree that this is clearly a form of exploitation. perhaps we might even call it theft. how might we outline the nature of this exploitation?
is the exploitation the use of an artist's intellectual property without their permission? you could certainly call it that, and i wouldn't disagree. if we're using that definition, though, i wouldn't call this a unique phenomenon to AI art... not to mention that this presumes intellectual property law holds some kind of objective sway.
is the exploitation in this case the devaluation of the hours spent honing and practicing the craft? that is, training a neural network on an artist's work exploits the time and labor that the original artist put into its creation. this is better because time and effort are in fact, observable things, and the form of exploitation is at least somewhat clear.
now that we have an idea of how, specifically, it is used as a means of exploitation, let's interrogate why we think that, namely whether the value being 'stolen' here is . let's say that we have two artists of vastly differing levels of experience (A having more, and B having less) and have them take the same amount of time to produce a work of art each, given the exact same materials and subject.
now, without thinking about it too hard, how would you express the value of each artwork?
common sense would presume that A's work would be valued higher. some might say that that's common sense, but why is that?
"it's because A is more skilled."
this isn't much to go on; after all, skill is relative. any comparisons of technical skill are ultimately made in the abstract; even objective measures of technique are founded in matters of taste and are informed by the standards and sensibilities of the age. it's possible that later assessments made generations from now will conclude that B's technique aligns more with their particular social attitudes and that well actually B was the more skilled artist (etc., etc.).
"it's because the more experienced artist has put more time and effort into it."
this is stronger reasoning, at least; unlike bringing up the artist's skill, this is at least consistent with our earlier assertion that value correlates with time and effort.
while both artists have invested the same number of labor hours in the production of their respective art pieces, you can argue that the more experienced artist has invested labor hours in improving their craft, which translates to additional labor invested in the production of their art. okay.
what happens, then, if we compared the two works of art in our example with a third piece of art produced by artist C, but with half the time and materials? let's go even further and say that C has zero artistic experience whatsoever, but is otherwise an extremely famous public figure.
now: is it still true that the relative values still reflect a correlation with the time/labor investment when we consider this third piece of art? unless we argue that, somehow, C's time is inherently 'worth more' than that of A or B, if that connection between value and time (even tangentially) existed before, it's certainly gone by now.
what is the value of art, then? it can't simply be the labor and effort, as we've seen. how, then, does society value art? or, to revisit an earlier tangent: how does society define art?
in fact, if we're going to make assertions over whether AI art is, or is not art, we might as well go all the way.
what is art?
"the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination [...] producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power."
this is from the google dictionary definition, which centers the production of art as being specifically human. if we were to take this at face value, then indeed, AI art cannot be art. but what does that say about works capable of being appreciated for their beauty but not produced by humans, say, a chimpanzee, or a pig? are those not artistic in their own way?
"the conscious use of skill and creative imagination especially in the production of aesthetic objects."
the Merriam-Webster definition, by contrast, does not actually define the production of art as being necessarily human, merely that it is conscious. while we could then argue over whether Pigcasso was consciously using her creative imagination, we would then have to prove what consciousness is. 'are non-human producers of aesthetic objects conscious' is a discussion that, in my view, is best left to philosophy freshmen and the writers of visual novels.
other definitions (e.g., OED), as you might expect, define art in more or less similar terms. rather than bore you further, we can at least distill all of them down in terms of their common elements, namely:
art is a skilled productive process
it results in the production of objects or works
works of art are produced and appreciated based on social factors such as beauty or aesthetics
we've identified that art is, a.) a productive force, and b.) created and appreciated based on social factors. in other words, the manner in which society values art is an intrinsic part of it. but how is that?
let's revisit the earlier example with artists A and B: when i asked you to express the value of their art, in what way did you express value?
i'm not at all saying that i believe that artists, or anyone for that matter, should therefore not sell their labor to support their livelihoods, especially when it is the only means of survival available to far too many people. wishing it did not have to be so will not make it not so, and we all do what we must to survive.
but let us not pretend, however, that AI art is a unique and inexplicable form of exploitation that exists independently of the economic conditions that precipitated it.
i would go so far as to suggest the opposite, that it was inevitable; just as it was inevitable that chatbots and machines were built to replace call center agents and factory workers, just as it is inevitable that AI-generated prose and code are built to replace writers and programmers. what drives this inevitability is how society incentivizes the ruthless pursuit of profit, no matter the human cost.
no matter the technology, or the shape that the exploitation that the technology enables takes, the end result is the same: our continued reduction of value to purely its price on the receipt. and so long as that continues, can we really rely on the same institutions that enable a culture founded on commodity consumption to save us?
is AI art exploitative? given the manner in which these neural networks are trained, yes, it is.
is this necessarily different from how, as with any commodity, technology will inevitably be used to automate, and thereby replace, human labor? i don't think so.
what, then, is to be done?
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