meshugenist

[meshugenist]

U got it boss

[meshugenist]

An unused colossus from Shadow of the Colossus called Spider

[meshugenist]

[meshugenist]

FYI in case you had plans for any food and or drugs in the future [18 Apr 25]

[meshugenist]

[meshugenist]

Yeah uh sorry but we're denying you the medication that makes you regrow the hands you lost in the accident due to cancer risk.

Oh the type of cancer? Hand cancer. It's. It's significantly higher when you have hands.

Higher than for the general population of people with hands? Uhhhhhhhhh well now you're asking really complicated and sort of ideologically motivated questions.

[meshugenist]

Giant or Waxy Monkey Leaf Frog (Phyllomedusa sauvagii), family Hylidae, found in central South America

photograph by Nattattackss (@nattattackss)

[meshugenist]

[meshugenist]

Sometimes the cruelty is just a happy accident of the rent-seeking behavior

[meshugenist]

Ok so genuine question. Why did you end one of your posts with “anyways: Do you think blackfilmmakers has stopped beating their wife¹?��

because 'have you stopped beating your wife' is the classic stock example of a loaded question -- a question with a very specific assumption baked into the premise, that if you just try and straightforwardly answer you are implicitly agreeing with.

i did this in my post to point out exactly what that user was doing when she answered an ask asking if they thought i "was still friends with toonimals" without disputing the pedojacketing intrinsic to the question, which builds in an assumption that i was friends with a pedophile who i in fact literally never spoke to, followed, or interacted with beyond reblogging one post separated via a long chain of reblogs.

i think that it is extremely important to specifically call out these kind of subtle plausible deniability tactics from transmisogynists, make it crystal clear exactly what they are doing and how to recognize it, because in nominally 'trans-friendly' spaces this is how transmisogyny operates, through this motte-and-bailey mechanism of implication that can be denied to a tme audience to make them think the trans woman in question is being crazy and hysterical and paranoid.

so for that reason, i'm once again just posing the question: do you think blackfilmmakers has stopped beating her wife?

[meshugenist]

I kind of don’t really care about the parents of trans kids at all lol even the supportive ones. I don’t care if they’re scared for their child I think we should just focus on the wellbeing of trans youth and not treat parents as protagonists of reality

[meshugenist]

sometimes this country is really fucking funny

[meshugenist]

the government deleted its covid-19 information websites and replaced it with this

[meshugenist]

you know if you think about it the whole "don't mess with gamers... i'm close to leveling up and you look like just enough xp" novelty shirt is kinda funny. imagine a shirt that says "if you displease me i will kill you and absorb your essence"

[meshugenist]

[meshugenist]

Doing It Wrong On Purpose: Episode 1 - The Un-Ship

Today's experiment: What happens if I prompt for something, and then negative prompt all the main keywords, plus various synonyms and related words?

The answer: Some gloriously weird stuff.

For example, let's look at a negative cat:

Positive prompt: A cat on a windowsill during a storm

Negative prompt: Cat, feline, felidae, kitty, kitten, animal, pet, windowsill, window, glass, pane, house, storm, rain, water, lightning, thunder, clouds, torrent, downpour, snow, blizzard, wind, windy

Interesting! Let's get a little more fantasy with it and try for an anti-deer:

Positive prompt: A deer in a peaceful flowery meadow, crystals, midnight, fantasy, colorful

Negative prompt: Deer, cervidae, animal, elk, moose, stag, doe, fawn, reindeer, antelope, cervid, antlers, flowers, night, dark, trees, foliage, bloom, stars, night, tranquil, fantastic, vibrant, cool, magic, blue, moon, sky, crystal, stone, statue, topiary, floral, blossom

Between these two experiments, including a few dozen other generations that remain unposted, one thing I can say for sure is that for living subjects, it's a great way to get the kind of anatomical wonk that older models are (in)famous for - and it makes sense why, the model is trying to make something that looks like a certain subject...but once it starts to look too much like it, well, shit, we told it NOT to do that! Break something up! Given that I love that kind of wonk, I think I've found a useful tool for myself.

One more living subject, and let's get even more abstract with our direction here:

Positive prompt: mind horse

Negative prompt: horse, equine, colt, filly, mare, stallion, bronco, pony, mind, brain, thought, essence, psyche, intelligence, consciousness, imagination, dream, soul, visualization, intellect, wit, cognizance

Now let's try something that isn't alive. One thing I love AI for is surreal settings and landscapes - lets try one now!

Positive prompt: A magic palace garden made of crystal and gold

Negative prompt: Palace, magic, crystal, gold, fantasy, castle, estate, stronghold, temple, garden, flowers, plants, blossoms, bloom, blooms, trees, grass, stems, foliage, leaves, greenery, branches, bush, bushes, hedge, hedges, metal, luxury, stone, glass, brass, rose, polished, jewel, prism, courtyard

I then tried to see if, learning from the animal subjects, I could make it more likely to return one of my favorite "mistakes" - making it impossible to discern the point where a water area ends and a sky area begins. I wasn't immediately successful, but I came up with some results I found pleasing regardless-

Positive prompt: Secret hideout in a cave behind a waterfall in the foggy forest on a floating sky island in fluffy clouds

Negative prompt: hideout, camp, campsite, home, abode, house, dwelling, rest, shelter, waterfall, water, cave, grotto, forest, woods, woodland, trees, fountain, cascade, pond, stream, lake, river, brook, puddle, creek, pool, beach, ocean, sea, cloud, clouds, sky, cumulus, cirrus, nimbus, fog, storm, rain, sunshower, falls

It seems that with landscapes it's got a much clearer and more specific "idea" of what a [SUBJECT] without [SUBJECT] looks like; it's more inclined to invent very specific, very consistent unasked for related elements. With the animals, I was tweaking the weight on the positive prompt to avoid getting straightforwardly just what I had positive (and negative) prompted, but with landscapes, I just get... almost something else entirely.

So how about inanimate objects? Let's try a ship, perhaps?

Positive prompt: A huge sailing ship with brilliant prismatic crystal sails on a stormy, turbulent sea of sunset clouds

Negative prompt: ship, boat, sailboat, sailing ship, pirate ship, galleon, ketch, schooner, sloop, cutter, sail, sea, ocean, storm, wind, rain, water, waves, cloudy, clouds, fog, sunset, dusk, dawn, sunrise, twilight, evening

...okay, I'm in love with the un-ship. It truly does manage to consistently give me results that look like, yet entirely unlike, a ship. It is everything I love about AI as a medium. More than that, it is my friend.

At lower positive prompt weights, they only get even more beautifully chaotic.

I want to live on one of these (in an alternate universe where they're geometrically possible and structurally sound, that is).

Failing that, I will be featuring them a lot from now on.

All images generated using Simple Stable, under the Code of Ethics of Are We Art Yet?